


The Name

by theacesofhearts



Category: A.C.E (Beat Interactive Band), NC.A
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-21
Updated: 2019-01-07
Packaged: 2019-04-25 22:50:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 27,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14388753
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theacesofhearts/pseuds/theacesofhearts
Summary: Soulmate/ˈsəʊlmeɪt/nouna person ideally suited to another as a romantic partneror let's just say soulmate aka the person that has their name engraved on our skin in a magical waybut not everyone wants to be with their soulmateand i am one of themp.s. this is an unedited work so there might be some mistakes here and there :)





	1. Chapter 1

Everything in this world is created with partner. The sun and the moon, water and land, day and night, and of course, man and woman. But that is just what they call the ‘rule of the world’, and rule is made to be broken, isn’t it? We’re living in a milenium age where it doesn’t really matter if our partner is a man or a woman… or both. Have you heard about werewolves and their mates? In which werewolves are destined to be with their mate ever since they were born. It was set by the God from the start. They call their mate as partner for life, soulmate, or whatever the hell they like to call them. But they are werewolves and they aren’t real. Even if they are real, I don’t really give a shit about it. Because I have a bigger problem to think in life, today to be more precise. Why today? Because today is my 20th birthday. Why is my 20th birthday is a bigger problem than the existence of werewolves? Let me tell you.

In our world, the world that I’m living in, we were born like the werewolves. We were born with our life partner set for us by the God. It’s not just a normal “oh I have a feeling we’re meant to be together” thing, it’s the “I have your name engraved on my skin so like it or not, you’re my soulmate and we are fated to die together” kind of thing. We don’t know who our life partner will be until our 20th birthday, which happens to be today for me. How will it happen? Apparently, by what is told by my parents, the name will start to appear on our skin on our 20th birthday, on the exact time that we were born 20 years ago. Will it hurt? According to the tales, it differs from one person to another. Some will feel it like a soft touch on the skin and the name is suddenly there, some will sting like a bee sting, or maybe snake bite, and some will feel like their skin is burnt to the bones.  


The main question for the day, no actually for my whole life, “can a guy’s name appear on a guy’s skin or will it be a girl’s name like how the rule was made?” I’ve been anxious the whole night and had been avoiding others since this morning. I skipped my morning class and decided to sit in the library on my own, in the deepest part of the library, at the very back of the room. I turned to the clock on my right – 10:30am – I was born at exactly 10:50am 20 years ago so I have about 20 minutes to prepare myself. From what my parents told me, the progress of our relationship will go according to how painful the engraving process is. The more painful it is, the harder it will be for us to come together. What am I hoping for myself? I don’t even know. At some point I’m hoping it will feel like the gentlest touch on my skin and I will get the name of the person I really wanted but at another point I came to a realization that it is impossible for the name I wanted to appear and I have a strong feeling that it will feel like a burn, like the most painful burn a man can feel, like he was burnt alive, and feels his skin eaten by the fire, and that his bones burn into ashes. I turned to my right again to see it’s only 5 minutes left until the moment of truth. Is the rule really made to be broken by humans or will the rule of the world win over us? 

10 seconds to 10:50am and I closed my eyes to deny the reality. But it’s real, it’s happening. At first, I felt like a sharp sting on my back, just below the neck, few seconds passes, it’s getting worse, the pain that I thought will not be as bad turned out to be the worst pain I’ve felt my entire life, it burned. I held onto the table like it was my lifesaver. I gritted my teeth, trying my best not to scream. A low growl escaped my mouth. The burn was getting worse. I shut my eyes hoping it was all just a dream but who am I kidding. I’ve never felt anything as painful as this. Is it even possible? To feel this kind of pain? I wasn’t sure how long I stayed like that, how long it lasted but the pain was gone right after I heard someone called my name. It was so distant at first, like it was all a dream but it continued to get closer until I heard it calling me right in front of me. “Park Junhee, you okay?” The voice is deep, and soft, and it was the exact voice that I was hoping to hear at that exact moment. I opened my eyes slowly, the lights from the windows hurt my eyes as I was trying to adjust to it. My eyes went everywhere to look for the source of the voice and landed on a very beautiful sight of my boyfriend. Yes, I didn’t stutter. My boyfriend. Up for another story-telling session?

This is exactly the reason why I’m hoping it is possible for humans to break the rule of the world. My name is Park Junhee, a university student in Seoul, Korea. I’ve been dating my boyfriend, Lee Donghun ever since we were in high school, 3 years ago. He was in his senior year and I was a junior. Do we need to get into details on how we met, or do we just skip that part? Okay, long story short, we met at school, made out in a classroom and the next thing I knew, he asked me to be his boyfriend. I said yes and that’s that. We are now living together in an apartment near our university. Oh, before I almost forgot, Donghun is a year older than me so that means he already got his ‘soulmate’s’ name last year. But Donghun is a hard-headed person. He didn’t even bother to look at the name when he first got it and decided to keep it covered all the time, even during our . . . session. I tried to sneak at it but he always managed to stop me before I got to see it. It’s been over a year since he got the name but the only thing I know is that it started with a ‘Kim’ which obviously, not my name. So, ever since that day, I stopped believing that humans can change the rule of the world, but do I still have hope? Of course, I do. I love Donghun with all my heart and I want to be his soulmate. Not just some random girl he meets at Starbucks or something. 

“You okay?” he asked again as he slowly took a sit beside me. “You looked like you’re in so much pain.” I let out a soft sigh as I ran my hand on the name. “It was. It burnt like hell.” “Let me see it.” He got up from his seat and put his hand on my shoulder to take a look at the ‘burn’ but I stopped him. I know how heartbreaking it will be for him to see that it’s not his name that was engraved on my skin. I know how it feels because I’ve felt it when I found out that it’s not my name on his skin. “No. It’ll feel better. Don’t worry.” I smiled a reassuring smile before gesturing him to sit back down. “Was yours hurt this much?” “How much?” “Like it burns your skin.” A soft sigh escaped from his mouth. “No. I think mine was totally different from yours.” “You’ve never told me about it.” He shook his head lightly, an unreadable expression was portrayed on his face. “I don’t wanna talk to you about it. I had a feeling that if I ever tell you about it, it will make us grow apart. Because you know, we both know, no matter whose name it is that is on our skin, we’ll both get hurt by it.” He squeezed my hand lightly, sending a silent reassuring message that the rule and the name mean nothing to him, to us. I pulled my chair closer to his and put my hand around his waist. I lifted his shirt to expose a small part of his waist before running my hand through his skin to find the scar that spelt the name of his soulmate.  
You see, this name will appear on any part of our body. Donghun had the name on his waist which is pretty easy to hide and mine is luckily on my back. We’re both lucky to have such safe spot for the name but some people are not as lucky as us. Some got it on their palm, some on their neck, arms, legs and other parts of the body that you could think of. But God is nice to his creatures. As far as we concerned, no human will have the name of their soulmate engraved on their face, which we are thankful for.

Donghun put his hands around my neck, fingers softly caressing the freshly engraved name on my back. He slowly closing the distance between us and planted a peck on my cheek. “I hope we stay like this until the end. F*ck the name. I love you and it will always be you.” I buried my face on his neck, swallowing the tears that urged to fall out as the words escaped his mouth like an angel whisper. “I love you too.” I replied, whispering onto his neck. We stayed like that for a few minutes before a voice broke the thin, fragile bubble we had around us.


	2. Chapter 2

“Hello.” Her voice was soft, it’s not like the typical “oh, I’m cute” voice but the voice that will melt guys’ hearts and break them too. I pulled away from Donghun slowly, once again adjusting my eyes to the light. I was about to pull my chair back to its original position but Donghun held my thigh, not allowing me to move from him. His eyes were sharp, glaring at the girl. It’s like he knew her, though I doubt it because I know every single person in his life and I swore I’ve never seen her before. The girl smiled widely before taking a sit right across him. “You’re Lee Donghun right?” she asked, which she only received a soft nod as a reply. “Hye, I’m Sua.” She held out a hand to shake with him but of course, was rejected – as I said, my boyfriend is hard-headed and he does things his own way – so she turned to me, expecting me to shake her hand and I did. “I’m Junhee.” I introduced myself as politely as I could. “Hi, Junhee. I’m assuming you guys are… dating. Which is totally fine by me. Not that I have any right to say anything about it.” “Yes, you don’t.” Donghun suddenly cut her off. She smiled widely at his respond. “Yes, of course. Anyway, I was in your psychology class, I mean we were in the same class and remember the lecturer wanted us to do a pair work? I asked around and they told me that you still haven’t decided on your partner so can we be partners? I mean for this project, of course.” “I don’t need a partner. I’ve decided to do it on my own.” He replied coldly. I was trying my best to stay out of this conversation but everytime I tried to pull my chair, Donghun grabbed my thigh tighter so I didn’t have any choice but to stay. 

“You don’t really have a choice here gentleman. I want a partner and you’re the only person who still hasn’t had a partner and either you want it or not, you HAVE to do it with me.” She said sternly, clenching her teeth as if she’s holding her anger that might blow out anytime. “No, I do have a choice and I choose to not do it with you so please do me a favour and get the f*ck out of here.” “I’m not going anywhere until you agree to be my partner.” She said as she’s making herself comfortable on the chair. “Suit yourself. If you’re not going anywhere, then I’m going. Let’s go.” He pushed his chair back and pulled me up, gathered our bags and made our way out of the library. 

“Who’s that?” I asked just as soon as we were out of the library. “You heard her. We’re classmates.” “Yea, but you don’t act this way with your other classmates.” He stopped on his track upon hearing my reply. “Why did you say that?” “Does her family name happen to be ‘Kim’?” His eyes changed, a few seconds ago he was mad, angry, but now it’s something else. Something I didn’t really know how to read. Was it sad? Regret? Sorry? Instead of answering my question, he decided to stay silent and let out a defeated sigh. “You knew her. You’ve known about her all along. You pretended like you haven’t seen the name but you did. You go to class everyday knowing that you will meet your soulmate, the person fated for you by the God but you’re pretending like she’s not anywhere near you. Like she doesn’t even exist.” I took a deep breath, swallowing the tears that was already welled up in my eyes. “Is that why she was so interested about us being together?” “Park Junhee you have to stop.” He closed the gap between us and hugged me as tight as he could, whispering comforting words to my ear as his hand gently caressing my back. “Please promise me you will never lie to me again.” I begged as I melted into his embrace. “I promise. I promise.” He whispered into my ear, unwrapping his hands around my body and cupped my face with his palms. “I promise you I have never had any interest in her and she will never EVER interest me.” and ended his sentence with his trademark you-can-never-not-fall-for-this-smile smile. I let out a defeated chuckle and nodded softly at his words. “But you should go partner with her though. I don’t want you to do it on your own.” “Why not?” I faked a long sigh as a reply. “You always complain on how hard your assignments are and now you want to do a work that is supposedly be done by two people, on your own? I won’t be taking any risk, if I were you.” He chuckled at my reaction as he nodded lightly. “If that’s what you want. But I’m only doing this for you.” I rolled my eyes before continue walking down the stairs. 

That’s just how things work between us, we have a fight, either one of us will cry, the other will comfort the other one and there you go, we’re good again. The thing is we’re both men and you know how ego-ish men can be and both of us actually got quite an ego for a man but we just tear the walls down between each other. What’s the point of being ego with your partner when you know they’re the reason you’re smiling everyday? 

I went to sleep as soon as I got home. We didn’t even bother to attend our evening class and went straight home after what happened. I was too tired to think about anything and Donghun, he was just not in the mood to face his ‘soulmate’, no he didn’t tell me about it but come on, we can all assume it. I wasn’t sure how long I was asleep but I was awoken by the sound of the water running in the shower. I got up and felt a sting on the scar, the name. I touched it and winced at the pain I felt as my fingers touched it. I never knew it will hurt this much. I took off my clothes and grabbed my towel before went into the shower. Donghun noticed me and immediately turned off the water. “You okay?” We’re not like what you think. Showering together is definitely not our kind of kink but I just felt like I wanted to do something out of the normality. Something that we hadn’t done before. I felt like I wanted to have more affection with him. I just wanted him. I pushed him to the wall and kissed the shit out of him. Turned the tap on and let the warm water ran through our bodies. It was the first time that we had ever done something as … what do I call it? Erotic? Yes, something as ‘erotic’ as that. Little did I know, it would also be the last.


	3. Chapter 3

What do you usually do after a hot sex? I mean we’ve had sex before but never this hot and we had never felt this awkward after a sex – well I know I feel the awkwardness flying in the air. I don’t know about Donghun but I was more than sure he had been avoiding any eye contact with me ever since we came out from the shower earlier. I went straight into my room after we were ‘done’ and Donghun stayed in his. It’s not that we don’t want to share our room but we believe that it’s better for us to have our own space. Though we spent most of our nights in Donghun’s room, there are times when we feel like being alone, so we decided to have a room to ourselves. Anyway, back to the main topic, what do we do after a shower sex? I know people usually have a cuddle session of sorts after a sex, well we did, but you don’t cuddle in the shower after a shower sex, do you? I stayed in my room for as long as I could remember and there were just too many stuffs went on in my head. I ran my fingers on the name on my back, the feeling of Donghun’s kisses still lingered on that exact spot. Is this the reason why he avoided me? Because he saw the name? I knew things would turn out bad once we found out the names, but I didn’t expect it to be this fast. I mean it had been a while since I found out that it was not my name on his skin, but I was never the one to avoid him or anything. Because a name is a name and as long as I love him, and he loves me then nothing else matter. But I don’t want to blame him, so I thought it was just the sudden hot moment we had that made him the way he was. I decided to brush off all thoughts from my head and headed out.

Donghun offered to make me dinner as a sign of apology for lying to me about Sua. I could’ve said “no you don’t have to apologize, you did nothing wrong” but I can’t just simply say no to food, can I? Donghun was cutting some vegetables or whatever the hell he was doing in the kitchen when a question popped up in my head. “Have you told that girl Sua that you will partner with her?” I asked casually while lying down on the couch, watching some show, I don’t even remember what it was. It was silent for a while, he stopped doing whatever he was doing before, the air was quite intense but luckily it didn’t last for long. It took him a few seconds to answer. “Can we please not talk about her right now?” “Well, we can’t not talk about her forever.” I then got up and sit on the couch so that he could see my face. “I thought you said you would do it for me.” He let out a soft sigh “Yes, I will. But not tonight. Probably tomorrow… or never.” His voice getting slower as the sentence went by. “Fine, tell her tomorrow then. I hope you won’t lie to me… again.” I said as I lied back down on the couch. 

The dinner went on normally, except for the part where Donghun couldn’t stop asking me if I was okay and if I was still mad which I kept on replying with a smile and a simple “I’m fine.” We were watching some show after dinner when Donghun asked a question I never thought he would ever ask. “So do you know any ‘Im Soeun’?” His eyes were still focusing on the tv. Well, sure he was not focused at all but let’s just pretend we don’t know that. I know Donghun was not the type to just talk about this soulmate thing out of nowhere. He never talked about his no matter how hard I pushed him to talk about it, so yes it was very unexpected of him to ask that question. “So it’s Im Soeun?” I asked, trying to sound as cool as I could. “Don’t tell me you haven’t seen it.” He questioned, this time with an extremely judging look plastered on his face. “First of all, it was on my back so it was pretty impossible for me to look at it on my own and second of all, even if I could see it, I wouldn’t and if in any case I accidentally see it, I will never bother to make sense of the name because I don’t care. I just don’t fucking care.” I replied, eyes staring straight into his soul. It was like an automatic reaction, he suddenly cupped my face and closed the gap between us as he gave me his signature, addicting kiss. “I love you, and it will always be you.” He said as soon as we pulled apart. 

I decided to sleep with Donghun that night, I just felt like I wanted to be with him, I wanted to spend as much time as I could with him, I felt like if I didn’t hold onto him then he’ll be gone once I wake up in the morning. His arms were wrapped around me in a very protective way while my hands playing his fingers. I could feel his breath at the back of my neck and his lips planted soft kissed on the skin. He slowly moved lower from my neck and the next thing I knew a soft kiss was planted on my back, right on the name that was carved on my skin a few hours earlier. Normally I would enjoy it but not that night. I jumped at the burning sensation I felt from the kiss, escaping from his embrace and sit up straight on the bed. My fingers almost immediately found their way to the burning part of the skin and slowly tracing it, flinched when the skin of my fingers touched the name. “You okay?” Donghun asked while hand slowly caressing my thigh. I put my hand on both side before changing my position to face him.

“How much do you know about the name?” I looked at him dead in the eyes. He got up and sat in front of me, eyes not leaving mine for a second. “Does it burn? The scar?” His fingers found their way to mine and quietly playing with them, which in some ways was very soothing. I softly nodded which he sighed as a reply. “What does that mean?” “Okay, I don’t really know much about this but from what I heard, if you feel a sting or if the scar burns, it means that your soulmate is hurting, or something bad is happening to them.” My head was spinning as I was trying to process the new information. The fact that someone who is connected with me by the soul is hurting somewhat pains me, though I don’t even know who she is. “Have you ever felt a burn?” He nodded to my question. “She got involved in a car crash a few months ago.” His voice was almost like a whisper. I slowly intertwined our fingers and his lips stretched into a forced smile. “I may not know a lot about this thing but I know how attached we are to our soulmates. They’re in our souls. Heck, some even say they ARE our souls so whether you like it or not, you will feel their pain. I don’t even know who this Soeun is yet I feel bad knowing that she’s hurting so the fact that you know Sua, see her everyday and knowing that she was made for you must hurt you, not only your skin but your heart, when you found out her life was at risk.” Donghun was silent the whole time, his eyes were everywhere but me. I could clearly see he was holding back his tears, trying so hard to not show how much he cared about his soulmate. Well, I didn’t know how much he cared but like I said, we have no choice but to feel things for our soulmate, including worrying and caring about them, so he definitely cared about Sua, at least a little.


	4. Chapter 4

I woke up the next morning to an incoming notification ring on Donghun’s phone. I’m not the type to read my boyfriend’s messages and everything but it triggered me, more specifically, the contact name triggered me. 

1 New Message from Kim Sua

“I don’t care if you want to be my partner or not, you HAVE to see me at 12 today for our discussion. I’ll wait at the table under the stairs. Be there or I’ll fuck you up real bad.” 

“They even have each other’s phone number.” A voice in my head said and it was not a pleasant one. I slowly got up, being as quiet as I could so that I didn’t wake him up and headed to the shower. I finished my morning routine as usual and I was making my breakfast when Donghun came out of his room with his stuck out to every angle. “You’re awake early. I thought you don’t have morning class today?” I asked, eyes still focusing on my blueberry pancake in the pan. “I got some stuffs to do. Do you want me to drive you today?” God, that morning voice still drove me crazy after years. I looked up to meet his eyes and a smile immediately carved on my lips. “It’s fine. I’ll be late today. Gotta finish some group projects.” He nodded as eyes fixated on the pancakes. “Got some for me?” “I’m not giving it to you until you shower.” I replied, taking the plate to the other side of the cabinet so he could not reach it. “God, since when are you my mum?” “Shut up and go take your shower.” He sighed in defeat and walking into his room to take a shower but not before he planted a soft kiss on my neck. 

He took his time in the shower and was doing his hair when I finished my breakfast. I put the plate in the sink before went into his room to say my goodbye. “Gotta run now. I’ll be late for my class. Love you, bye.” I pecked his lips in a hurry and ran outside. The day went on normally except for the burning sensation I got from time to time on the scar. I wonder what is happening with her and why do I get this burning sensation so often. Like is she sick so the pain never really go away or is someone constantly hurting her or does she hurt herself? All these questions stuck in my head the entire day. I didn’t care about her, like I said to Donghun, I just didn’t care but it was hard to pretend like I didn’t care when I was constantly reminded that I have her name carved on my skin.

It was around 5pm and I was still having a group discussion for our class project when I received a text message from Donghun

D: Are you home?

J: No. Still have a lot to be done. You?

D: Same. I’ll probably be home really late. Make sure you have your dinner.

J: Okay. You too. Don’t skip dinner. I’ll see you… when I see you :P

D: See you babe <3

I smiled to my phone before locked it back and keep it in my bag. We continued our discussion until one of us realised it was almost 9pm that we stopped and went our separate ways. I was too tired to have a proper dinner so I decided to just hit the McDonald’s on the way home, buying two sets hoping my other half was already home by the time I arrive. I pushed open the door to be greeted by the darkness of our home. “He must have a shit ton of stuffs to be done.” I monologued to myself, trying my best to stay positive. “I have to trust him.” Those words were repeated in my head like a chant. I finished my dinner and cleaned myself before going to sleep. I was just about to fall into dreamland when my phone rang notified me of an incoming text.

D: Are you asleep? I’m on my way home. 

J: I was just about to go to sleep. I bought you mcdonalds if you haven’t had dinner.

D: I need it. Thanks. I’ll be home any minute. See you <3

I tried to stay awake until he come home but I guess I was too exhausted so I fell asleep as soon as I put my phone down. 

The morning sun punched me right in the face through my window, waking me up from my beauty sleep. A groan escaped my mouth as I tossed around the bed. It was silent, and it was not the peaceful silent I would love to wake up to. There was a weird feeling in my stomach, in my head, in my chest so I got up from the bed as soon as I opened my eyes. 

The first thing I saw when I stepped outside of the room was the untouched McDonald’s bag that looked very lonely sitting on its own on the kitchen cabinet. I suddenly felt a weird rush in my stomach, feeling the urge to immediately run to Donghun’s room to see if he was still sleeping, maybe he was just too tired to have his dinner, maybe he fell asleep as soon as he got home. The door to his room was left open, not too big that I could see inside, but not completely shut either. I pushed open the door to reveal a completely made bed, untouched, no noise or any sign of him in the room. I snapped my head to look at the clock, “maybe he already left for college”; 7.30am. Why would he leave this early? On a weekend. It’s either that or he didn’t come home last night. But he said he would be home any minute. He said he was on his way home. He said he needed the dinner I bought for him. I was becoming more and more paranoid as the seconds went by. I ran to my room to check on my phone, maybe he texted me, maybe something came up on his way home, maybe… nothing. No new notification. All sorts of bad thoughts came attacked my head like a hurricane as I plopped down to the bed. Did something happen to him? 

My shaking fingers successfully typed in his number on the screen as my hand slowly brought the phone to my ear. A few rings and still no answer, “Sorry the number you have dialled…” I hit the red button as the woman’s voice hit my ear. I ran a hand through my morning hair, getting frustrated. I opened up our conversation from last night, “last seen 10.30pm”. “Kim Donghun please. Don’t do this to me.” I whispered to my phone, to myself, more like praying to every God there was that nothing bad had happened. I decided to take a quick shower before went outside to look for my lost love.


	5. Chapter 5

My eyes were wild, looking at the road, and my phone at the same time as my fingers were busy trying to call our bestfriend who went to our high school and happened to attend our university as well. “please pick up” I talked to myself as the line rang a few times before a deep voice answered my call. 

“GOD FINALLY!” I screamed to the phone, not even allowing him to finish his “hello”. “What the fuck it’s only 8am and you’re already screaming?! Did your pet die or something?” Sehyoon asked, obviously annoyed that I interrupted his beautiful weekend morning. 

“Worse. Donghun is missing.” I made a turn at the traffic light to drive into the university – it was weekend so there were not many cars around which means that I will not get into a car crash or anything for driving while talking on the phone. Maybe something came up at the university that he had to stay the night here or something. 

“You’re talking about Kim Donghun, a grown-up, a university student, the most responsible person I know – missing?” sarcasm was evident in his tone. “I’m serious! Did you see him yesterday? Last night?” 

I pulled over, not caring how badly my car was parked. I still need to find my boyfriend so I decided it was not a wise choice to talk on the phone while driving, especially when I’m talking to someone like Sehyoon. “I saw him yesterday evening and that’s it.” 

“What time? Where? Did you guys have a proper conversation? What did he say? Did he say something about me? Did he say he didn’t want to be with me anymore? He didn’t want to come home? Did he say anything? Just fucking anything?!” At this point I was crying, I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I just wanted to see Donghun and hug him and make sure that he was fine, that he didn’t hurt himself, that he still want to be with me, that I was just being paranoid. 

“I don’t know, I think it was around 6 in our faculty, probably having a project discussion or something.”

“Is he with a girl? Do you know her?” 

“His classmate.” 

“His soulmate?” 

“Wait, you know about Sua?” I heard noises from his end of the line, probably him getting up from his bed now that the conversation is getting interesting. 

“Yea we talked about it the other day. Did he say anything to you though?” 

“He asked me about knowing someone with the name ‘Soeun’ or something and that it’s weird now that you already got your soulmate’s name.” 

“Do you?” 

“Do I what?” 

“Know anyone named Soeun?” 

“No. Is she…” he stopped, trying to find proper words to finish his question. 

“my soulmate? Yes.” 

“oh…” was all I got from him. 

“Anyway that’s not important. Do you know any of his friends? Classmates or anything that maybe saw him last night? Or maybe do you have Sua’s phone number? She’s probably the last person he saw last night.” 

“That I can help you. I’ll send you Sua’s number. Or do you want me to call her for you?” 

“Send it to me. I’ll talk to her myself. Thanks.” 

“Yea, no problem. Just call me if you need anything. Oh and I have her address if you want.” 

“Better. Send both to me and yes, I will.”

We ended the call and not long after that I received a text from Sehyoon with a contact number and address attached. I punched in the address into my car GPS and drove off to wherever it took me without second thoughts. I decided that it would be better if I call her first so I took a deep breath and let it out with a loud puff, making sure my voice was not as shaky as before, that my cry was not evident in my voice, before clicking on the contact name. I brought the phone closer to my ear and a voice answered the phone after a few rings, sending chills to my spines. “Hello, who’s this?” It was Sua’s voice. What was I expecting? Of course it was her, I called her. “Hey, this is Junhee. I hope you still remember me.” I stopped my car almost immediately when the GPS notified me that I had arrived at my destination. So she lived in a housing area near campus, the house was big, bigger than a normal student could afford so I assumed she is quite well-off. There were two cars parked in front of her house, one was a black Ford and I couldn’t see the other one as it was covered by a tree. 

“Oh yes, of course. How could I forget? Can I help you with anything?” her voice was low, she sounded sick, though I could hear she was trying to sound more cheerful. Did something happen to her? “I fixed you something to eat.” A familiar voice said in the background, it was too familiar that I felt a rush of tears, that I could break down anytime. I miss that voice. “Thanks.” She replied to the person before coming back to me “Sorry about that, what was it again? Oh yea, can I help you with anything?” she asked again, all too casually. “Umm.. I just want to ask, if you…” I stopped, right at that moment I saw a familiar figure came out from her house. I felt like throwing up. I shook my head in denial. I felt a lump in my throat, tears threaten to come out anytime. “Hello, Junhee? You there?” she asked again. “Actually, nothing. I’m… I’ll talk to you later. Bye.” I ended the call as the tears that welled up in my eyes rolled down my cheeks. “Fuck the name, I love you and it will always be you” his voice played in my head like a broken record. “It will always be you” the voice repeated, “yet here you are, spending the night at her house?” I questioned rhetorically, more like monologuing to myself, trying to deny the reality.


	6. Chapter 6

It was quiet, other than the sound of the shower running, I couldn’t hear anything else. I took a careful step inside, trying my best to maintain a calm composure. I put down my phone and keys on the table before moving to the kitchen to heat up the McDonald’s from last night. The shower stopped running and like a rehearsed cue, the door of the bathroom opened just as the microwave ding alerted me that the food was heated up. The door to his bedroom was opened as wide as the hell’s door inviting me to come inside so I could see him snapped his head to the kitchen as he heard the ding. A smile immediately formed on his handsome feature as he saw me. “Shut up satan” I swear I could hear my own voice saying that in my head. “When did you came back?” he asked, as he walked over to me, water still dripping from his hair, towel wrapped around his waist, revealing his perfectly toned abs. “Just now.” My voice came out lower than I was expecting, inviting a weird look from him. “Is something wrong?” he asked too casually I felt like slapping him hard across the face with a metal chair. “I don’t know. Is something wrong? I wasn’t the one who didn’t come home last night.” The sarcasm in my voice can be heard all the way across the Atlantic Ocean. 

A heavy sigh escaped his mouth. “Go put something on first and then we’ll talk. I bet you have a lot of explanation to do.” I spoke up before he even had the chance to say anything, pretending to be busy with the food so that I wouldn’t have to look at him. I let out a breath I didn’t know I was holding when I heard the sound of his room door closing a few seconds later. This is going to be a long day.

The air was intense, none of us could come up with anything to say. Donghun was clearly trying to avoid my death glare, his fingers were busy fidgeting while he kept on licking his lips out of nervousness. I took a deep breath, trying to keep myself calm, making sure my voice would come out steady. “Stop being so nervous, it’s not like I’m going to kill you or something.” I said, making myself comfortable on the couch across him, getting ready for the upcoming hurricane. “Explain.” I thought it was best to get straight to the main point rather than beating around the bush. I heard him shuffled around in his seat before taking a long breath and opening his mouth, ready to speak up. 

“I was on my way home last night.” his head was hanging low but I could clearly see him trying to peek at my reaction, which he didn’t get much in return since I was trying so hard to retain myself from giving him any reaction. “And I was texting you while driving home when suddenly I felt the scar burnt, the name.” he stopped to take a deep breath as if trying so hard to not start crying while telling me about his soulmate. “So I tried calling Sua to ask her if anything happen, if she’s okay. You know… since I was the last person she saw so I wanted to make sure that she returned home safe. She picked up my call but didn’t say anything, instead I heard heavy breathing so I thought she was just… sleeping with someone. But just before I was about to end the call, I heard a whimper, like she was begging. So I asked her again if she’s okay but there was still no answer until I heard her scream and I was pretty sure she was running when she started talking to me. I couldn’t hear her properly but I was sure she was asking for help so I asked where she was and immediately drove off to where she was. When I arrived…” he stopped to take a breather, I was more than sure if I was not the one listening to him, he would have broken down to tears so I bet whatever happened to her last night was really bad. 

“When I arrived, she was nowhere to be found so I looked around, that’s when I saw her. I’ve never seen her so helpless, her shirt was torn, she was a crying mess, I knew she was hit by the look of the bruises on her face, and my scar was burning like hell so I know how much of a pain she was in. He was working on her pants, almost pulling it down when I lashed on him. I don’t know what had gotten in me and I don’t know where I got all the energy to beat him but I did. I beat him to pulp. And I didn’t even realise that I lost my phone, probably during the fight because I took her home right after that and I only realised my phone was gone when we were already at her house. I wanted to call you, to tell you that I would be late but I lost my phone and I was too caught up with whatever the hell happened.” He looked up to look at my reaction which again, still wasn’t much as it was too much for me to take in so I was technically frozen in my seat. “And because she needed me… more than anyone.” His voice getting lower. She needed him, he’s the only that can heal her because he’s her soulmate. 

My head was spinning. “I was thinking to come home after she fell asleep but I guess I was too tired so I fell asleep before she did.” I heaved a heavy breath, signalling him to stop. I pinched my temple lightly, trying to absorb all the crazy information I just received. It was too much for me. I mean it make sense though, the reason why he didn’t come home, his soulmate needed him, why he didn’t call me to inform me anything about it, he lost his phone. 

“I went to Sua’s house this morning.” I said, making the intense air getting more intense I couldn’t even breathe properly at the intensity around me. “Why did you?” he was clearly shocked at the fact, maybe the fact that he was busted. “I was worried sick!” at this point I didn’t care how pissed I look, I didn’t even bother to hide how mad I was at him, how worried I was because of him. I got up from the couch, I couldn’t sit still. “You said you were on your way home, I wanted to wait for you but I was too exhausted so I fell asleep without making sure that you’re home safe, and waking up seeing you’re not in your room, there’s no call, no text, I tried calling you, texting you, but there was no answer, nothing. I was so fucking worried maybe something happened to you. So the last choice I had was to ask the last person you saw and do you know how broken I was when I saw you walked out of her house?! Lee Donghun, the person who told me he doesn’t give one shit about his soulmate, spending the night in his soulmate’s house. What the fuck?! Oh and I called her, it was nice of you to prepare something for her to eat and all. It must be great to have your soulmate taking care of you.” 

“It was you? Who called her this morning?” I answered the question by mumbling my “fuck you” before taking my seat back on the couch.

I could clearly see the guilt in his eyes, as if he was trying to say how sorry he was with his eyes, and I hate to admit that it actually worked in some ways. “How do you even know I was with her yesterday? And how did you know her address? And her phone number?” “I saw the text she sent you yesterday, about meeting her for discussion and I asked Sehyoon.” I answered him, sounding calmer and more collected than I was earlier. He breathed out a long sigh before getting up and made his way to me. He knelt in front of me, holding my hands in his, kissing them with all the loves he had for me. “I’m so sorry for making you worry about me. I know I’m dumb for doing whatever I did but trust me, I only did it because she needed me. I know meds can heal her and she would be better over time but I thought it’s better if she could heal faster, so that I wouldn’t have to be involved with her anymore. Please trust me. None of the things I did last night would affect our relationship, or my relationship with her. She’s still no one for me and you’re still the most important person in my life.” 

He was crying, the hold on my hand was getting tighter by the seconds. I could see the honesty in his eyes, the desperation for me to accept his apology. The tears in my eyes rolled down my cheeks like there was no tomorrow. We were both a mess, I was mad at him but I know he was being honest, that he would never lie to me and I couldn’t keep being mad at him because I was weak for him, I needed him. “Promise me that would be the first and the last.” I said with a lowered voice but kept the strictness in my tone. His eyes lit up at my words. He was kissing my hands, and then my cheeks and lastly my lips. “Yes, yes. Oh my god, yes. I promise.” His words were followed by a hug. Never in our 3-years relationship had I received that kind of hug from him. The emotion poured out through the hug, his desperation, his thankfulness, his honesty, his love, I could feel all of them at once. God, I love this man.


	7. Chapter 7

The day went on faster than ever as we spent the whole day cuddling on Donghun's bed. I was enjoying my evening bath when I heard a knock on the bathroom door. “Junhee, I'm going out. Gotta finish some works. Do you want me to get you anything for dinner?” 

“No, it's okay. Just make sure to text or call if you're gonna be late... Or sleeping in your soulmate's house again...” My voice got lower as I said the last part so I was more than sure he didn’t hear it as he asked “Did you say something?” I replied with a simple “nothing” before I heard the front door opening and shut again. 

I let out a heavy sigh before brushed off all thoughts from my head and continue my bath. 

I decided to skip dinner and went to bed early that night after finishing my assignment. I went to sleep in Donghun's room, snuggling into his pillow, melting to his smell that he left on it. 

The front door clicked open, waking me up from my sleep so I tried to peek at the clock between my sleepy eyes, 3a.m. What is he doing coming back this late? I tried to stay awake until he comes into the room but it took him too long. “Probably having his late late-night snack” I though to myself unaware of the sleepiness that was taking over my eyes once again as my brain falling into dreamland. 

I jumped up at the sound of my phone ringing, opening my eyes slowly as the light from the window hit my face. My heart got heavy noticing I was alone on the bed. I answered the call without even looking at the contact name. “Hello, this is Junhee right?” the voice was soft, and it was oddly familiar. Sua? “Hello, yes it's me.” I was trying so hard to hide the sleepiness in my voice. “Can I help you with anything?”

Somehow this scene looks familiar in my head, the same thing happened yesterday. We talked on the phone, one of us was asking the exact same question. The only different was she was the one who asked it yesterday and today, it's vice versa.

It took her awhile before answering my question, probably looking for the right thing to say. After all she's talking to her soulmate's boyfriend. “Em... Is Donghun home?” the question caught me off guard. Why did she have to call me to ask that? Why did she even call me in the first place? Was she the one that Donghun saw last night? I could feel my anger rising.

I took my time to answer as it hit me, I didn’t even know if he was home. I ran my hand through my messy morning hair before answering her with the only thing I could think of. “I think so, yes. Why do you ask?” I answered, sounding as collected as I could. “Can I see you? There is something I need to talk.” My heart dropped at her words. But why? I bit my lower lip, unsure of what to answer. Should I go and see her? Talk to her? I could already tell that this will not end well.

I stayed silent for a few more moments before the room door clicked open, revealing a sleepy figure of my boyfriend. “Sure, I'll text you where to meet.” I answered, avoiding any eye contact with the man who just stepped inside the room. Sua muttered her “Okay then, see you” before we ended the call.

Donghun raised his eyebrows, confused as to whom I was speaking that early in the morning. “Who’s that?” he asked, taking the empty spot on the bed beside me. “Yuchan. He's coming to Seoul and he wants to see me.” I answered with a smile. 

Yuchan is my half brother. My mum got married with his father after my dad passed away and he was my only bestfriend I had when we were kids. You see it's hard marrying with someone who is not our soulmate so the marriage my mum had with Yuchan's father did not last long and it ended badly with my mum fled to only-God-knows-where leaving me with both my stepdad and Yuchan. We were so close with each other despite being half brothers and he was the only person in our lives, apart from Sehyoon, that was being supportive of my relationship with Donghun after my stepdad kicked me out of the house after finding out about us calling me “a disgusting piece of shit”.

I put my head on his lap, lying back down on the bed as I took his hand in mine, playing with his long fingers. “Why didn’t you sleep here last night?” I slowly caressed his lap with my free hand. “I was too tired I didn’t even realise I fell asleep on the couch.” I chuckled at his answer before silence fell upon us. Rather than an awkward one, it was actually the kind of silent I enjoyed. We needed this moment, melting ourselves into the peaceful silence when suddenly my phone beeped, notifying me of an incoming text. I quickly opened the text, making sure Donghun couldn’t see my screen. 

1 Message by: Sua

S: Is 2 at 5tar café fine by you?

J: Sure. See you.

I hit send and immediately kept my phone under the pillow as I looked up to see the beautiful man I called my boyfriend was looking at me with a weird expression. “Keeping a secret from me now?” he asked, sarcastic. “It's only fair if both of us have our own secrets.” I said plainly before getting up and went into the bathroom. I could hear his defeated sigh as I closed the bathroom door, definitely catching the hidden meaning behind my words.

A delicious smell greeted me as I got out from the bathroom immediately brought my attention focused on the man who was diligently cooking in the kitchen. A small smile crept up my lips before it faded again as I remembered my meet up with his soulmate later that evening.

Is it the right thing to do? To go and see her? I heaved a soft sigh. I know it wasn’t a wise choice but my curiosity got the best of me and will the curiousity kill the cat? We'll just have to wait and see I guess.


	8. Chapter 8

We had our breakfast together and decided to do some house cleaning the whole morning before I got ready and headed out to meet Sua. My heart was beating fast, my palms were sweating, I kept on biting my lips and I felt the urge to tell someone about it just to get it out of my chest worrying I might explode anytime. So I called the only person that knew about all this while on my way to the café.

“Sehyoon, what you doing?” I couldn’t hide the anxiety in my voice. I could hear he groaned from the other end of the line before muttered, “what? Is Donghun missing again?” He sighed.

“Worse.” I answered. “What the fuck I'm hearing this twice from you already in just a span of less than 48 hours. How bad is your life Park Junhee?” 

“My life is fucking bad, trust me.” He let out a really loud sigh this time, levelling to my level of dramatic. “What is it now?”

“I’m on my way to meet Sua.” I surprised myself at how low my voice was and I could hear everything went silent from Sehyoon's end of the line. “what the fuck...” was the only come back I got from him.

“Told you my life is bad.” I sighed, disappointed at myself. “Tell me everything.” His voice was low, failed to hide the concern in his voice. I don’t have many friends but I'm glad Sehyoon is one of the few friends I had, even though he can be a pain in the ass at times. He's always there when we need him and he never judge us for being who we are.  
“I called her yesterday, right after you gave me her number. Oh, and I went to her house.” I got straight to the point. “And?” he replied, sounded impatient. “I...” I tried to calm myself down, to not cry at the mention of yesterday's historic event. 

“Take your time.” He whispered. I took a long breath, swallowed a lump that was forming in my throat before decided I was ready to continue. “I found out he... he spent the night... at her house.” Sehyoon muttered a faint “fuck” before the both of us fell silent for a few moments.

“I...” he stuttered. “Fuck I don’t even know what to say.” My lips were stretched to form a weak smile at his respond. “You don’t have to say anything. I just need someone to talk to.”

“Fine. Did he say anything though about it? Did you ask him anything? Did you guys even talk about it?” He was mad, he was disappointed, he was everything but happy. “We did and he explained everything. Said something about her almost getting... raped.” I whispered the last part. 

“Shit! Is she okay?” Wait why did he sound like this? Is there something I didn’t know? “Sehyoon, can I ask you something?” curiousity got the best of me again. “Yea, sure.” He tried to sound calm. 

“How did you know Sua?” It was silent and at that moment I realised that I made a mistake of asking the question. I was just about to say that he didn’t have to answer it if he don’t want to when he said,

“Um... She was my girlfriend.” Silent again. I didn’t expect to hear that answer from him. 

“You remember the girl I told you about? The one that went to the same school as my sister?” 

“I vividly remember that, yes.”

“Yea, it's her.”

“How did you guys...”

“Broke up?” I muttered a simple “mhm...” before he continued, 

“We broke up the day after her 20th birthday last year. I just couldn’t get it into my head, the fact that she's my bestfriend's soulmate. Even though I know Donghun will give zero shit about her but it didn’t feel right. Sleeping with someone who's not rightfully yours. I thought I could careless about it but when we slept together after her birthday party and seeing the fresh scar of Donghun's name on her skin was just... I don’t know it hurt me in every possible way. And I know I will hurt Donghun as well.” 

“Wait what do you mean you will hurt Donghun?”

“What do you mean what I mean? Don’t tell me you don’t know about it.”

“About what? That the scar burns if our soulmate gets hurt? Yes I know about that.”

“That one, yes but the one time it hurts the most is when our soulmate is sleeping with someone else. And I'm telling you it's the worst.”

“WHAT THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY TIMES WE HAD SEX SINCE LAST YEAR OH MY FUCKING GOD!” 

“How do I know how many times you guys had sex.” There you go the Sehyoon you feel like deserves all the mighty kicks in the whole world.

“Fuck you. And goddamnit I can’t fucking imagine how bad Sua had it oh my god.” My grip on the wheel tighten at the thought of Sua crying herself to sleep, bearing the pain of her soulmate sleeping with someone else all by herself.

“Trust me, you don’t wanna know.” Sehyoon's voice was soft, all the sarcasm was gone. I arrived at the café right after he said that and I parked my car in front of the café.   
“Dude I'm here, I'll talk to you later.” I said before ended the call after we said our goodbyes. 

I felt a lump once again forming in my throat as I saw Sua sitting at one of the tables beside the window. She looked just as nervous as I was, fidgeting with her fingers, checking her phone every few seconds, shaking her legs under the table. I didn’t blame her though I would be nervous if I were her. Hell, I was nervous myself. 

I took a few deep breath to calm my nerve down before stepping out of my car and made my way into the café. Her head snapped towards the door as she heard the small bell rang as I swung it open. She formed a weak yet honest with a glint of nervousness smile. 

She eyed me carefully as I took the seat across from her while her fingers nervously playing with her phone. “Sorry I'm late.” I tried to start a small talk. She shook her head softly as her already smiling lips forming a wider smile at my words. “It’s okay. I just got here as well.” Her voice was very different from the last time we saw each other in the library. I couldn’t really tell when we talked on the phone but I could clearly heard the difference when I talked to her in person. She sounded weak. 

“You haven’t ordered anything?” I asked upon seeing the lack of drink or food on the table. “Yea, I guess it's better for me to wait for you.” She answered softly, which honestly shook me. I wasn’t expecting her to be someone who's softspoken and polite considering she threatened my boyfriend during our first meeting. 

“Yea, sure. Let's order something.” I called the waiter and surprisingly we ordered the same iced latte. “I guess we have the same taste.” She absentmindedly remarked making my heart feeling like jumping out of my chest. 

We had a little small talk before she started getting to the point on why we were seeing each other. She cleared her throat before asking, “Did Donghun know you're coming to see me?” I shook my head at her question while whispering a silent ‘no'. 

“Okay look, I'm not the type who likes to beat around the bush so let me just get this straight to the point.” She sounded firm, though her voice was still as soft as earlier. My palms were getting sweaty, I bit my lower lips out of nervousness, the temperature suddenly dropped to the lowest point.


	9. Chapter 9

“I’m sure by now you noticed that I know the fact that you are aware I’m Donghun’s soulmate. Sorry, Donghun told me about it. And I know you guys have been together for a long time, 3 years if I'm not mistaken right?” I nodded, answering the question which I sure was rhetorical. “And I know I don’t have any right over him, he's not mine, he’s yours. His heart is yours.” Sehyoon's words suddenly hit me like a truck, “Sleeping with someone who's not rightfully yours”. Donghun is not rightfully mine, he's hers. She has all the right to own him. And yet, here she is, talking to me about him like he's no one, humbly saying that her soulmate is not hers, but mine?

“But who am I kidding? Who am I even trying to lie? I need him. Hell, I crave for him.” At this point she sounded so weak that I felt like she could pass out anytime. Tears welled up in her eyes. “I crave for him that I did something so dumb and now I feel like I've sinned and the only person that can reward me forgiveness is you.”

Confuse is an understatement, I was petrified of what would come next, of where this is leading to and as to what happened that she felt like she had sinned, towards me.  
“What actually happened?” was all I could ask, was all that I could get out of my mouth.

She took a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. “I...” she sighed. “We...” she tried again, her eyes were everywhere but me, trying to avoid my burning gaze as I got impatient. “We had sex.” She let it all out in one breath, saying it as fast as she could, her voice getting softer than it already was. 

The time stopped, I didn’t know if it was hot or cold I was feeling, my head was spinning, everything around me was disappearing to white, I couldn’t hear anything other than the rapid beating of my heart, so many things were going on in my head but nothing could come out of my mouth. The girl in front of me was looking at me with all sorts of emotions in her eyes, anticipating my answer. I wanted to curse but to who? I wanted to yell but Sua wasn’t the one at fault? I just wanted to disappear.

“Park Junhee please say something. Just anything.” Her voice was trembling, almost begging.

“I don’t even know what to say.” My voice came out as whisper.

“I'm so sorry.” I looked up upon hearing that and saw the tears rolling down her cheeks and that was when it dawned on me, this shouldn’t happen. This should be the other way around. She shouldn’t be the one who's apologizing, she shouldn’t be the one who's begging for forgiveness, she shouldn’t be the one to cry out of guilt. I wasn’t the one who feels the pain when Donghun had sex with someone, I wasn’t the one who had his name on my skin, I wasn’t the one whose soul connected to him, it wasn’t me, it's her.

My hand slowly moving towards her, holding her hand in mine, slowly caressing it. “Please don’t apologize. You didn’t do anything wrong. It’s in our nature to crave for our soulmate. I'm so sorry. The reason why I didn’t know you guys slept together is because I don’t feel the pain, because I don’t have his name on my skin. But you... You bear it for over a year, all the pain, mentally and physically. I should be the one apologizing, for not thinking once about how you feel.” 

My voice was low, almost like a whisper. I swallowed my tears, biting down my lower lip until I could taste a drop of blood on my tongue. My eyes looked up to look at hers when I saw the hurricane of emotions in her eyes. She kept her head down, teeth biting down her inner lips as she kept quiet, I was waiting for her reply but I was sure I wouldn’t get any anytime soon so instead I said the only thing that I could think of, 

“He's yours, the God made you guys for each other and keep my word, I will return him to you, to the place he belongs to. I promise you and I will never ever break it. You have my words.” I could careless about my feelings, I could careless about the promise I made with Donghun, I just didn’t care about anything other than the fragile girl in front of me. 

I got into the car and immediately let out the heavy breath I didn’t know I was holding. The girl had walked into her car, sped off to the other side of the city as soon as she got in.  
While I was still trying to digest every single thing that happened earlier. I put my head on the wheel, closed my eyes and just allowing all the tears I've been holding from earlier flow out like a waterfall. Everything is too much to take so I just let everything out in order for me to have enough space to absorb everything in. 

A week passed and I was trying hard to avoid Donghun. I wad afraid that I might break down if I see him. I haven’t talked to him about my meeting with Sua. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Talking about it means I have to fulfill my promise to Sua. To return what's rightfully hers. 

We started to get distance. We rarely talked, we didn’t even sleep together anymore, he always got home late and I always made sure that I went to bed before he got home. It was the worst. I didn’t want to talk to anyone about it but I could feel my feelings were eating me alive. 

And of course, my scar hurt from time to time, still making me wonder what exactly happening to this Soeun. It worried me at times when the pain was getting worse. There was one night where I felt it burnt like hell, the pain that I felt when I first got the name woke me up from my sleep, and it stayed for a few days before it subsided eventually.

I was trying to keep myself busy with my assignments though it wasn’t much of a help, when my phone rang, notifying me of an incoming call, woke me up from my trance. I took it out from my back pocket and a smile immediately took over my feature as I saw the contact name; Kang Yuchan <3.


	10. Chapter 10

“Oh my god my little baby do you know how much I miss you?“ I said as soon as I answered the call, chuckled as I heard low groan from the other end of the line at the cringey nickname I gave him.

“First of all, I'm not little and I'm definitely not a baby. And second of all, I MISS YOU TOO!” he screamed, making me pulled the phone from my ear. I heard some guy muttered a “what the fuck” behind him before he shyly apologize. 

“Where are you right now kiddo? Please don’t embarrass yourself in public.” 

“I'm at- wait what's wrong with you? Did you cry? You sounds horrible.”

“Wow thanks. And yea I cried because I suddenly missed you too much I couldn’t handle it.”

“Clown.” He cursed under his breath, getting annoyed and I was sure he knew I lied.

“Anyway back to the topic, where are you?”

“Oh yea, about that. I kinda need your help right now. Like a huge favour actually.” I heard he was taping his phone rapidly, something he always does when he's nervous.

“This doesn’t sound good at all. What did you do this time?” 

“Okay it is bad but in my defense, it wasn’t something that I do, it's...” he stopped.

“It’s?” I asked, clearly impatient.

“It’s dad.” His voice was low, all the fun and laugh were gone from his voice. I sighed at the mention of the older man.

“What did he do this time?” I rephrased my question.

“He kicked me out of the house.” 

“WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? WHY THE FUCK? IS HE FUCKING MAD? YOU'RE HIS FUCKING SON!” 

“OH MY GOD STOP SCREAMING!” I took a few moments to calm myself down before continued,

“Fine, okay now tell me what happened?”

“I'll tell you when I see you.”

“And when is that dumbass? It's not like we're neighbour or something, we can’t see each other. You're in Je-fucking-ju.” He giggled as a respond making me raised my brows in confusion.

“I'm in Seoul right now.” He said it in one short breath. I was too shocked to say anything that I stayed silent for a few moments to sink it in. 

“You’re in Seoul as in, here, Seoul?”

“Is there any other Seoul you know?” I could already imagine the smuggle smirk on his face as he said it, the playfulness in his eyes. I shook my head at his cheeky reply.

“Okay where exactly are you right now? I'm coming to pick you up.”

“I'm at the airport.”

“Okay, I'll be there in 30.” We then said our goodbyes and I immediately got ready and drove off to the airport, excited to meet my little brother.

We decided to talk over ice cream because Yuchan insisted that “I'm sure Seoul's ice creams taste much better than Jeju's”. We sat at one of the tables beside the window at the very back of the ice cream house.

“You look like shit you know.” Yuchan said as soon as we set ourselves at the table.

“First you said I sound horrible and now I look like shit. I don’t know man maybe I should just kill you now that your dad doesn’t care about you anymore.” 

“That old man stopped caring long ago, he just kept me because of the “you’re my responsibility” bullshit.” He said sarcastically, making an air quote with his fingers. I chuckled, shook my head at how cute he was. God I miss him so much. 

We haven’t seen each other since the day I was kicked out from the house and only talked through phone for the whole two years. He had always told me how he wanted to move in with me but his dad never allowed him to see me, let alone living together under one roof. There are nights where he called me and just cried throughout the whole conversation and I never ask why, because that’s just how things work with him, he never share his problems with others, always keeps them to himself.

Yuchan is that one famous kid in school, the one who you think life is on his side, has everything from money to happiness when in reality there are 1001 pains hidden behind one bright smile. He has neither money nor happiness. Yuchan had always been famous in school for being bright. He's smart, nice, cheerful, it's hard to hate him while on the other hand, I'm that one guy in school who you never knew ever existed. 

I don’t like being the centre of attention so I stayed invisible throughout my school years. I didn’t even know how Donghun noticed me in the first place considering he was one who always hung out with the cool kids. But whatever it is, I'm glad that I was more than just a shadow to him. I winced mentally at the thought of him.  
“You’re his son, of course he cares.”

“Bullshit.” He mumbled under his breath at my words while I still couldn’t hold my giggle at his cuteness. Whatever he does is cute to me, including cursing. No judging.

“Okay now young man, tell me everything.” I said before shoving a spoonful of ice cream into my mouth. 

“Okay I will but promise me you'll tell me everything about you once I'm done.” I contemplated. It's not that I didn’t trust him but I don’t want Donghun to feel like I couldn’t be trusted for simply telling others about us, even though Yuchan is my brother.

Yuchan was looking at me with his doe eyes, silently begging me to say yes. I let out a defeated sigh before agreeing to the little devil, “fine, I'll tell you everything. But for now, you first.”

He jumped from excitement at my answer before clearing his throat,

“Okay... It actually started two years ago, when he kicked you out of the house. He started coming home late at night, drunk. He sometimes brought women over, different women every night. He started to hit me, letting out his frustration on me, because I reminded him of mum and you. Calling both you guys “ungrateful pieces of shits.” He let out a sigh, head hung low staring down at his ice cream cup, fingers slowly playing with the spoon, probably playing all the images he saw for the past two years in his head.

“I couldn’t sleep at night because he kept on calling me to do things for him, throwing tantrum when I didn’t respond. It was hard for me to focus on my study because of the lack of sleep as well as the constant beatings. 

“But he's actually so nice when he's sober. Took care of me, cleaned my wounds and cuts for me, never get mad at me when I scored low on my test that one time. I vividly remember he said, “all success in the world come with hard works. You just need to work a little harder to achieve it and I'm sure you'll success one day. And make me proud.””  
His lips twitched, forming a faint smile. It stayed for a few seconds before fading again. 

“I was watching a movie the other day when he came home, sober than ever so he joined me. Suddenly the topic of you came up. I thought he would be more reasonable when he's sober. And since it has been two years so I thought he's over it by now but...” he was tapping his fingers rapidly on the cup, eyes never met mine once ever since he started talking.

“But I guess one can just assume. He's still being his homophobic ass when I told him I wanted to go on a vacation to Seoul, so that I could see you. He said something along the line of “I don’t want him to meet my son and spray his gay virus all over him”. So... I told him I wouldn’t mind because if I'm destined to be gay then I'll accept it and if being in a straight relationship means it ending up like his relationship with mum then I'll gladly be a gay.” 

Mother had been a sensitive to both of us, Yuchan especially. She left us when he was just a kid, growing up without the love of someone he could call a mother. He wiped his tears with his sleeve at the mention of the older woman. We both miss her but none could say anything about it. He took a deep breath, swallowing his tears before continued,

“That was the first time he'd ever beaten me when he's sober.” I heard silent sniffles as he buried his face in his palms. I tried to not add fuel to the fire so I just silently moved to the seat beside him and softly caressed his back. 

“You have me now kiddo.” I whispered to his ear which he replied with a hug, now burying his head on the crook of my neck, wetting it with his tears.


	11. Chapter 11

We stayed in the position for a few minutes before he pulled himself from me and wiped his tears with his sleeves. “Sorry about that.” He apologised.

“Don't be sorry. My arms are always open for you.” I replied ruffling his hair which I received a groan in return. I then went back to my seat as we stayed silent for a few minutes.

“Where did you get the money to buy the plane ticket though?” I asked after awhile. All the sadness were gone and he returned to his cheerful self when he grinned widely at my question.

“I've been collecting money for awhile, doing part time jobs and all so that I could fly to Seoul for a vacation. But I guess I'm staying longer than a vacation should be.” He shrugged. 

I smiled at him, “I won’t mind you're staying with us. We have a lot of catching up to be done. And I'm more than sure Donghun won’t mind too.” 

“Oh my god thank you soooooo much!” he jumped. 

“Okay now moving on.” He said with a faked seriousness, eyes burnt into mine. “It was your 20th birthday a few days ago.”

“Yes and I didn’t receive any wish from you I thought you’ve forgotten my gay ass."

“Shut up I thought I wanted to surprise you with the vacation.”

“Oh you've surprised me enough young man.” We both laughed at my words. 

I just love the common understanding I have with Yuchan. We understand each other’s problem and we turn those problems into jokes because that’s just how we make ourselves feel better. Since we both agree that no one can help us with our problems other than ourselves.

“Is your question answered?” Of course I told him about it. Can a guy's name appear on a guy's skin. 

I nodded at his question. “God is superior.” I answered, sighing. His hand reached to mine that was place on the table,

“Did Donghun know?” 

I heaved a heavy sigh at the mention of my boyfriend.

“Wait you guys still together right?” he asked, concerned.

“Of course we are.” I didn’t even hesitate. “Though I'm not sure how much longer we can stay like this.” This time I was the one who avoided his eyes. 

“I'm confused right now. What do you mean?”

I knew I couldn’t keep it any longer as Yuchan always has his own way to get me to tell my problems. He doesn’t do this often though, just when he's sure the problem is too much for me, and because he shared his and I promised him to share mine so I didn’t really have a choice.

I told him everything that happened, from the day I got my soulmate's name until my meeting with Sua and how everything was just different for both me and Donghun for the past week. 

“But why would you promise her such thing? When you know you're not strong for that. And plus I don’t think Donghun will ever agree with it.” My lips twitched into a smirk.

“They had sex, Yuchan. And I've heard people say how good it feels doing it with your soulmate so don’t you think he will crave for more? And I'm pretty sure he spent most of his time at her house that he came home late every night.”

He sighed at my answer. “Okay but you can’t just make a decision for him.”

“Hell yes I can. And I'm going to do it.” I ran my hand through my black hair as I let out a heavy sigh.

“Do you know why I'm so determined to give him back to his soulmate?”

Yuchan looked at me with curiousity in his eyes and I didn’t need him to say it to know he's dying for me to continue.

“You know, our soulmate can actually feel a pain on the scar if we get hurt. It's interesting right?” His eyes widen at the fact he just learnt. 

“Have you ever felt any pain?” He asked curiously. I just nodded at the question as I ran my fingers on the name. I still didn’t know why I felt the pain too often but for now I wasn’t ready find out yet.

“But you know what? I found out that the worst pain you could feel is... When your soulmate is sleeping with someone else.” My voice was low, almost a whisper. I still couldn’t imagine how Sua went through it all for the past year.

I heard Yuchan muttered an “oh my god” under his breath.

“And there's more to it.”

“What is it?”

“The pain that we feel from our soulmate’s sex will feed on our soul. It will drain our energy and we will become weak. And the only thing that can make us healthy again is our soulmate. Sleeping with them to be precise. Like how our soulmate can heal us from our physical pain, they can help us heal our dying soul.” 

Yuchan stayed silent the entire time, probably too overwhelmed with the information he just received. 

“And imagine Sua had to bear the pain for over a year, imagine how weak she was for the past year. The pain was eating her alive. That’s why I couldn’t even get mad at her when she told me about Donghun. She didn’t want it, she needed it.”

Yuchan pinched his temple softly, trying to sink everything in, looking for something to say. A few moments passed before he heaved a deep breath,

“Okay so let's just say you guys do break up, Donghun does agree to be with his soulmate, what will you do then? You can’t just act like nothing happened and I'm sure finding your soulmate is not even a choice for you.”

Yuchan knew me too well, how I don’t want to be with someone else other than Donghun, how if I can’t be with Donghun then I won’t be with anyone else.  
I shrugged at him, “I don’t even know.” I muttered under my breath.

We then decided that it was enough of the soulmate talks so we talked about something else. We stayed in the ice cream house for almost two hours before went back to my place.


	12. Chapter 12

It was expected that no one was home. It was completely dark and the only sound could be heard was the sound of the clock on the wall ticking. I turned the light on and letting the both of us inside. Yuchan put his bags in the living room before he looked around, admiring the interior of our house. 

“This is too lavish than what I imagined. How did you guys earn this much money? You even have a car of your own. What did you do? Strippers? Escort? Call boy?” 

“Fuck you.” I laughed at his statement.

“Okay but it's amazing how you live like this considering you were kicked out with nothing in your wallet.”

“First of all, I had money of my own in my bank account that I had been saving from my part time jobs. And second of all, most of these are Donghun's.”

Donghun came from a well-off family and her parents never go against our relationship though they did mention about the soulmate thing a few times and I was sure they prefer him to spend his life with his soulmate. They still give monthly allowance to Donghun even though he assured them that he didn’t need it. 

We did a few things to keep our lives going, I did some part time jobs, opened a tutor class for high school students, helping other students with their assignments and all. Donghun never really used the money he got from his parents other than for the house and our cars. 

I insisted that I didn’t need the car but Donghun never listen to me. Donghun always make sure that we live in a good condition, even if it's not the best, not because he was from a rich family but because he just wanted the best for both of us. 

“Come, I'll show you your room.” I told Yuchan as I was leading him to the only guest room in the house. 

I helped him unpacking his stuffs and putting everything in place before we went outside. We sat on the living room, watching some stuffs on the TV.

“Do you need to buy anything at the store? I'm thinking about cooking something special for you tonight.”

“Wait you cook now?” Yuchan asked, fake gasped at my statement.

“Shut up dumbass, it's not the first time I'm cooking for you.” He chuckled at my reply.

“Actually yes I have some stuffs to buy. Plus I want to look around. This is my first time living in a big city.” He said, excited. I shook my head at his childishness before we got ready and went to the supermarket.

We decided to just walk to the supermarket because Yuchan insisted he wanted to look around. We got our stuffs and went straight home. We were cooking in the kitchen and were laughing at some jokes Yuchan was making when the front door flung open. We immediately turned our head to the door and saw Donghun was standing at the door with an unreadable expression in his face, probably shocked to see Yuchan. 

“Oh my god you're home!” Yuchan jumped and ran to him, hugging him with all his might. A smile immediately formed on Donghun's face, ruffling the younger boy's hair.  
“When did you got here?” he asked. 

“This morning.” Yuchan answered with a wide grin. 

“He will be staying here for awhile if it's fine by you.” I said, eyes still focusing on the food in the pan, avoiding him.

“Of course it is. You can stay here for as long as you want.” He said, now pinching the boy's cheeks which he received a groan in return.

They laughed at each other before walking into the kitchen.

Donghun had always been fond of Yuchan. He treats him like his own brother. Sometimes I thought to myself if he hadn’t met me first, he would definitely date my little brother.   
I froze when Donghun suddenly pecked my cheek. “I miss you.” He whispered. 

He immediately walked to the sink, washing his hand, “Is there anything I can help?” he asked all too casually. I calmed myself down before answering,

“You can cut the veggies. Yuchan sucks at it.” I replied, trying to sound collected, restraining myself from showing how much the short skinship we had affected me. 

Yuchan then took the seat on the cabinet, watching us cooking in silence. I was sure he could feel the tension between us but tried to not say anything about it. 

“I was expecting you to come here earlier. You've been in Seoul for a week why didn’t you just stay here?” Donghun suddenly asked, breaking the silence. Shit! I mentally curse myself for forgetting that. I lied to Donghun that I was seeing Yuchan when I went to meet Sua.

Yuchan eyes widened at the question, obviously confused with what was happening. He looked at me for some answer and I looked at him with pleading eyes, mentally telling him to lie for me. 

“Oh, about that. Haha.” He laughed awkwardly, trying to come up with something.

“Yea about that. Actually I visited my friend, Byeongkwan, I bet you remember him. Yea he forced me to stay with him for a week because he said he missed me.” He laughed again, trying to cover up his lies. 

I turned to him, thanking him with my eyes.

Donghun replied with a simple “oh...” before continued the conversation, eyes still fixated on the vegetables, 

“How’s your exam kiddo?” I totally forgot about his examination after all the stuffs he told me.

“It was fine. I don’t know if I did well though.” Yuchan answered as he popped a strawberry into his mouth.

“I'm sure you did well.” Donghun said, his voice assuring. Yuchan just answered with a wide grin and a soft “thank you” before we fell into another silence.

Yuchan cleared his throat after awhile, “So how’s college going for you guys?” 

“It was good, nothing much actually, just normal college stuffs.” Donghun answered.

We then continued cooking in silence apart from the times Yuchan made his lame jokes making us burst into laughter. He helped us setting up the table for dinner and we just talked about random stuffs during dinner. I still avoided any eye contacts with Donghun and Yuchan did most of the talkings.

Yuchan offered to do the dishes and Donghun immediately hit the shower. Yuchan excused himself into his room as soon as he finished with the dishes leaving me on my own in the living room. I took my time before getting up and went into my room. I took my evening shower and was sitting on my bed, checking my phone when I heard knocks on my door.


	13. Chapter 13

I took my evening shower and was sitting on my bed, checking my phone when I heard knocks on my door. 

Thinking it was Yuchan, I just told him to come inside without even looking up from my phone until I heard the door opening and then closing again. My body tensed as I realised it was Donghun. 

He casually took a seat beside me on the bed, hand reaching mine, drawing circles on it as he pulled it closer to him. 

“What happened to us?” he asked, his voice soft almost melted me like a cup of ice cream on a hot day. God I miss that voice.

“I don’t know.” My voice came out as a whisper. He furrowed his brows at my reply. 

I didn’t even realise I was crying until his thumb softly wiped the tears on my cheeks.

“I bet we have a lot of things to talk about.” I spoke up after awhile.

I could hear him heaved a soft sigh, lowered his head. He stared at his lap, thumbs still softly caressing my hand. 

“I'm sorry.” He whispered between his breath, only then I realised he was crying. His tears dropped on my hand.

I acted on impulse, closing the distance between us and wrapped my arms around him. He returned the hug almost immediately, burying his face into the crook of my neck and repeated “I'm sorry” like a broken record.

We stayed in that position for a few minutes before I pulled away. He wiped his tears with his sleeve, eyes still fixated on his lap.

“We don’t have to talk about this if you're not ready.” I said, lying when I was the one who was not ready to talk, who was not ready to let him go, to spend the rest of my life without the love that I treasured the most.

He lifted his head, eyes meeting mine and were full of emotions. His hands slowly reaching my face and without any warning, he crashed his lips on mine, pouring all of his emotions into the kiss. 

It was a slow kiss, I missed this, we missed this. I couldn’t even remember how mad I was at this man, how disappointed I was, all I could think of was that exact moment.

His lips moving along with mine, his hands on both side of my face. I brought my hand to his neck, slowly playing with the locks of his hair. 

It didn’t take long before the sad, soft kiss turned into a hot, passionate one. He started to bit on my lower lips and it took only a few moments before our tongues met and the next thing I knew he was on top of me. 

We cleaned ourselves right after and were cuddling on my bed after changing into our pajamas. He had his hands wrapped around me and his lips were busy planting kisses on my neck. I turned around to face him and I couldn’t help but to admire his beauty, I swear he was the most beautiful person I've seen my entire life. 

I peck his lips before pulled away again and stared him straight in the eyes,

“Let's break up.” My voice was low. His smile faded, I could feel his body tensed at my words. His eyes stared into mine, looking for any sort of joke but of course he found none.

“What do you mean?” he finally asked after some moments.

“I mean let's break up. Let's stop whatever we're doing right now. Let's stop hurting the innocent people who we've hurt for the past year.”

“You mean Sua?” I shivered when the cold air hit my skin as he unwrapped his hand from my body, sitting up, now his eyes showed nothing but anger.

“I told you I don’t wanna be with her, I wanna be with you.” 

I followed him and sat up on the bed, fingers playing with the hem of the comforter. I didn’t want to show my nervousness but I think it's enough acting.

“But your heart says otherwise.”

“What do you mean?”

“You slept together.” I mumbled.

His eyes widen at my statement, an earthquake in his eyes, mouth opening and then closing again, looking for the right thing to say.

“I met with her the other day.” I continued didn’t even bother to wait for his reply.

“She told me everything. And now...” I looked at him straight in the eyes, “I want to hear your side of the story, and please... Be honest. No more lies, no more secrets. Please.”


	14. Chapter 14

He sighed, running his hand through his brown hair. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispered. 

He then took my hand in his, drawing circles with his thumb, “I’ll tell you everything.” 

“Please.” I replied, sounded calmer than earlier.

“It started the day when I spent the night there. I swear nothing happened that night, I swear I didn’t lie when I said I fell asleep at her house, I swear everything I told you was real, I swear with all my heart.” I nodded, assuring him that I trusted him.

“But I went there again... The next day.” He bit his lower lip. I remember that was the day when I slept in his room but he never came in, passing out in the couch claiming he was too tired to go into the bedroom.

“She told me there are some corrections needed to be done on our project and that she was too weak to go out so I decided we should just do it at her place. We worked on the project for a few hours until it finished.

“She insisted that I stayed for dinner so I did. We talked about a few stuffs, family, our relationship and all, and that was when I realised she's nothing like how I imagined her to be. She was the exact opposite of what I expected of her.

“I felt a lot fonder of her after our talks. I don’t know, I guess it's because she's my... She has my name on her. I didn’t know what had gotten into me, and it happened so fast. I didn’t even realise it. It's just... It just happened.” He buried his face in his palms, frustrated.

“I came back home feeling guilty as hell that's why I decided to sleep on the couch. Because I didn’t want my dirty hands to touch you. You didn’t deserve any of this.” He whispered the last part.

I took a deep breath, “you came back for more? All those nights you came home late, you were there right?” I asked, forcing him.

The silent he gave me answered it all. I knew it. “It was great, wasn’t it? I heard how amazing it is when we're with our soulmate. How addictive it is.”

“Junhee please.” 

“I don’t know if Sua ever mentioned about this but I promised her something.” I bit my inner cheeks at the mention of the promise. This is it. Am I ready for this?   
He looked up from his lap, taken aback.

“What promise?” He asked.

“I promise her that I... will return what's hers.” 

“What?”

“I promised her whatever happen, I will return you to her, because that’s where you belong and I promise her to make it happen no matter what.”

“What the fuck no! You can’t just make a decision for me!” He half-shouted, didn’t want Yuchan to overhear us.

“Yes I can, and I already did.” 

“Park Junhee please I don’t want to...” he stopped, letting the sentence hanging as it was.

“Let me go Donghun, please. I think it's enough hurting others, maybe it’s time for us to be the ones who get hurt, to pay back for all the sins we've done.”

“Junhee, you don’t understand. I can’t live without you.”

“And neither can you live without Sua, and so is she. You need her just as much as she needs you, if not more. You guys were made for each other, your heart, your soul, your body, your everything, they’re hers. I don’t have any rights over you.”

There was no reply, he kept his eyes staring into mine, switching his focus from one eye to the other, looking for any answer. 

“If you want me to get out of the house, I will. If you want me to return the car, I will. If you want me to pay back every cent you've given me, I will. I just want to get this done and over with. Just please go to her, it's what she deserves. Please stop hurting her like this.” 

I was literally begging him, my hands were on both sides of his face, forcing him to look at me in the eyes. 

“Please.” This time I said it with a lower voice, almost breaking down to tears. “Please.” I repeated.

My thumbs softly wiped the tears that were rolling down his cheeks.

“I’m sorry.” He whispered as he took my hands in his and kissed them. “I’m sorry.” He repeated, this time he came closer and kissed my forehead. “I’m sorry.” Again, this time a kiss was planted on my temple. “I’m sorry.” His lips pecked my right cheek, “I’m sorry.” left cheek. “I’m really sorry.” He then moved to my lips, planted a soft yet full of emotions kiss. 

I closed my eyes as I felt his warm lips on mine and already craving for more when the warm sensation was gone almost as immediately as it came.

“You sure about this?” his voice woke me up from my trance, my eyes fluttered open. Of course I'm not.

“Yes.” My voice got stuck in my throat resulting in the word coming out as a whisper.

“Then promise me something.” He intertwined our fingers.

“What is it?” 

“Promise me that you'll do the same. Promise me you'll open your heart and soul for this Soeun once you meet her. Promise me you'll never hurt her like how you said we did to Sua. Promise me you'll take care of her heart and soul like it's yours. Promise me.” 

His forehead rested on mine, breath softly brushing my skin when he spoke. I closed my eyes and felt my warm tears wetting my cheeks. 

“Please, promise me.” He said again.

“I promise.” I muttered in between my sobs.

We then decided we should enjoy our last night together so Donghun decided to sleep in my room. We spent the whole night reminiscing our old memories from how we first met, to when my stepfather kicked me out of the house, to moving in with him, to when we went to a vacation and made a vow witnessed by the beach that no matter what happen, he would always be mine and I would always be his.

We cried and laughed and cried again and laughed again and repeated for only-God-knows how long. We were lying on my bed, his arms firmly wrapped around my waist. “Let's not forget each other, ever.” I said as I played with the locks of his hair. “Never forget.” He said before sleepiness took over my feature and fell asleep in his warm embrace.


	15. Chapter 15

I woke up the next morning feeling a huge void of loneliness in my chest. I looked to my left and saw the man who put me to sleep last night was gone. I got up at instance and went outside, greeted by a sleepy Yuchan struggling to make breakfast for himself. “Morning.” His eyes suddenly sparkled with freshness when he saw me but his face fell again when he saw my worried face.

“What's wrong?” He asked, putting the plate of toasts on the kitchen cabinet.

“Where’s Donghun?” I asked.

“I don’t know, probably in his room.” He shrugged, pointing to the master bedroom in the house which belong to the older guy. The door to the room was perfectly shut. I knocked on the door just in case he was inside before twisted the knob. It's unlocked.

I swung the door open and almost instantly my legs gave up. I fell to the floor crying. It was empty. Well, almost empty. He left some of his stuffs but most of them are gone, including a small photo frame that he treasured the most that was on his bedside table, our first picture together after we started dating.

It all hit me like a typhoon. It's real, it's happening, it wasn’t a dream, he had left me. 

I heard footsteps running before two arms wrapped around me. 

“He left me Chan, he left me. I sent him away, I told him I don’t wanna be with him anymore. I broke up with him. We broke up, Chan. It's all over now.” His hand moving up and down on my back, whispering words I couldn’t even make sense of. I felt his breath on top of my head and without any warning, I passed out.

 

I woke up to the sound of something loud and a cold, wet towel fell on my arm when I tried to get up. I looked around and realised I was lying down on the couch and the loud noise came from the kitchen. “Donghun is that you?” I asked, my voice came out hoarse. God my throat hurt.

“Nope, just me. It's still me. No Donghun.” Yuchan replied. I sat up, putting my whole body weight on my right arm that was on the couch's headrest. I saw Yuchan appeared out of nowhere, standing up holding a ladle in his hand that most probably fell down that created the loud noise earlier. 

I let out a disappointed sigh as I flopped down on the couch again. Tears threatening to come out, then I remembered I haven’t checked my phone since this morning. 

“Yuchan, can you please help me take my phone? It's in my room.” I half shouted, enough for the younger boy to hear it. Without any reply, I heard footsteps running into my room and out again this time running towards me. He handed me the phone and ran to the kitchen again. 

I chuckled at his cuteness, he always gets so clumsy when he's cooking. Yuchan is not the best at cooking, heck he’s most probably at the lowest level of cooking, always struggling when he's at it but always put his best effort into it which make whatever he cooks taste better.

“I'm making chicken soup for you is it okay? You caught a fever so I thought chicken soup is the best. Or do you want something else?” He asked, shouting from the kitchen. “No, anything is fine. Thanks.” I replied before unlocking my phone, seeing I received a bunch of text messages from Donghun. And Sua?

The texts are mostly about how he wished it was all a dream, and how he was doing it for me, and how he wished we could turn back time, and how he wished this soulmate bullshit never existed, and how he hoped I would keep my promise to him to treat Soeun like how she deserved, and how he hoped I would treasure all our memories together until the day I die.

I couldn’t stop my tears anymore so I just let everything out, making the couch wet with my tears.

The last text he sent me was his answer to my rant last night. 

*You can stay in the house as long as you want to, it's yours. You can use the car wherever you want to go, it's yours. You can keep every cent of the money I gave you, it's yours. And you can keep all the love I gave to you, it's all yours.*

My sobbing was getting worse as I read the text, I didn’t deserve this man. 

I then opened the text that Sua sent me and another rush of tears hit me as I read it.

*I don’t know what I did in my past life to deserve someone as good as you are in my life. If I were you I would be very selfish and would never do the thing that you did. I know a ‘thank you' will never be enough to heal your heartbreak, neither can a ‘sorry’. But I will still say it. Thank you so much and I'm really sorry this happen. All my pain I felt for the past year is now gone thanks to you. You saved my life, you saved my soul. I owe you the whole world and it still won’t be enough. I know this is so absurd but we can be friends if you want. But I totally understand if you’re starting to hate me, for taking something so important in your life. I would’ve died from the heartbreak but I hope you're strong. I know you are.*

Yuchan then came into the living room as soon as I finished reading the text, with a tray in his hands. He put down the tray, “Can you eat on your own or do you need me to feed you?” He asked, half concern and half joking.

“Clown.” I mumbled, receiving a chuckle from him. He helped me got up, gave a glass of water before handed me the bowl of chicken soup and a spoon.

“Be careful it's hot.”

I took a spoonful of the soup and blew on it before slurping it, feeling the warmth wrapped around my inside.

“I looked around the house and couldn’t find any meds for fever so I'm going to the pharmacy to buy some. Do you need anything?”

I shook my head. He picked the wet towel on the couch and brought it to the kitchen before he ran out of the house not wasting any time. 

The silence of being alone in the house was deafening in my ears and I was in desperate need to talk to someone or I might break down again so I took my phone and dialled a number that I remembered by heart.

“Yo dude, I heard about it. You okay?” Sehyoon asked as soon as he picked up the call.

“I guess.”

“Are you at home? Want me to come over?” Worry was evident in his voice.

“Yes and no. Yuchan's here. He's enough of a headache I don’t need another one.” I joked.

“Fuck you.” He cursed under his breath.

“But seriously I'm here all the time you can just call me if you need anything.”

“I want a time machine, can you help me?” I heard him sighed from the other end of the line.

“Hello officer, yes this guy right here. He's dumb.” He joked, making a meme reference. We both laughed and just continue talking about everything, and were trying our best to avoid the topic of the man I used to call my boyfriend.


	16. Chapter 16

A few weeks passed and I still wasn’t ready to talk to neither Donghun nor Sua. I avoided going near their faculty or Sua's housing area, knowing Donghun had moved in with her. I spent most of my time finishing my assignments or with Yuchan and his friend Byeongkwan who came to the house every once in a while. 

Yuchan decided that he wanted to work instead of just sitting around in the house mainly because he can’t survive without human interaction. He loves being around people so sitting alone is the house is not the best thing in his life. 

I swung the door open, greeted by the darkness of the place I called home. Yuchan had started working in a convenience store near our apartment so I was left alone on my own in the house most of the time. I went straight into my room, took a shower and put in my nightwear. 

I was waiting for my instant noodle in the microwave to be ready when the front door was swung open, revealing an exhausted Kang Yuchan. A smile crept up my lips as I watched him dragging himself inside the house.

“How’s work?” I asked, seeing by his respond, snapping his head towards me showed that he didn’t even realise I was there in the first place. 

His eyes lit up when he saw me and almost immediately his tiredness was washed away. “It was great. I mean my boss is not the best but I met a lot of nice people it's amazing. Some of them even live in this apartment building.”

He blabbered happily. It felt good seeing him happy. This is why people love being around Yuchan, he always radiates good energy to the people around him and making everyone’s bad day better. This is also why I didn’t mind him staying with me after the... break up. He can help me get my mind off things.

He tossed his stuffs on the kitchen table and immediately walked over to me, still talking about some events that happened earlier at work. 

“Oh oh by the way there's this one girl she's super cute judging by her uniform she's definitely a high school student I think she's a senior and because there was no one in the store when she was there so we talked a lot. She told me she used to work at the store during school holiday and the boss was the worst he bullies the workers a lot but he pays us a lot so it’s not really a problem I guess. But shit!” 

He suddenly exclaimed in the middle of the story-telling. I was about to shove the noodles in my mouth but stopped halfway. 

“what?” I asked, half curious and half annoyed.

“I forgot to ask her name.” He pouted, as he slumped his shoulders dramatically.

“You're dumb.” I added, monotone, before continued shoving the noodles into my mouth.

“Thanks for reminding.” He replied sarcastically before excused himself to his room to clean himself. 

I sighed thinking of the possibility of Yuchan falling in love or having a serious relationship before knowing his soulmate. I didn’t want him to fall in love with the wrong person and ending up like me. He's too pure for a painful heartbreak. 

I quickly finish my noodles and went inside my room to finish what was left of my assignments. Our final examinations are coming and there were just too many assignments and projects to be done in a short time so I was extremely busy finishing everything as well as preparing myself for the examination. I guess it's a good thing since they kept me distracted from the stuffs that had been happening the past few weeks.


	17. Chapter 17

The whole week passed like a wind so I was thankful it was weekend again. Yuchan told me he only works on weekdays since the weekend shifts were full because most high school students work at the store as a part-time worker for extra cash. 

So I was looking forward to spend the day with him, maybe go to the beach or something since I wanted to do some activities to relax my mind. But I was disappointed when I saw him came out of his room fully dressed with the biggest grin on his face. 

“Moooorrrrniiiingggg” he sang. I glared him death in the eyes.

“Oops someone's not in the mood I guess.” He said, taking a seat right across from me.

“I thought you said you only work on weekdays. And don’t tell me it's a date, i'm ready to give you a blue eye.” 

He laughed at my words before taking a bite of his pancake.

“I wish it is.” He replied, pouting, faking a sad face.

“Where you going then?” I asked, adding another pancake on my plate.

“Oh there's this one lady in the store asked if I want to join a support group in her organization as a volunteer and I said yes. She told me to come every weekend since I don’t have work on weekend.” 

“What the hell you can’t just simply say yes to someone you barely know. It might be a scam for all you know.” 

“Relax, I've made some research on the organization and it's legit. They held some of the biggest events for people with mental illnesses around Seoul. You should come too, it’ll be great. You can meet new people.” He said excitedly. 

I made a disgusted face, “no thanks.” I just hate being around people, especially when I don’t know them. “I prefer to just stay home, thank you so much.” I said, bowing to him before took my plate to the sink and did the dishes.

“Suits yourself. I gotta run now. Bye!” He got up and immediately ran out, not even caring to put the plate in the sink.

“You little devil! Wash your own plate!” 

“Do it for me please. I love you!” He shouted and the sound of the door closing following right after.

I shook my head, this kid is really a headache. I chuckled to myself before cleaning his plate from the table and finished the dishes. I then spent the whole morning cleaning every corner of the house, except for Donghun's room.

Yuchan and I both decided that it's better to just leave the room as it was. We never touch anything in the room ever since he left and just kept the door locked all the time. 

I didn’t really do much and basically just lay down the whole day, playing games on my phone after I was done with the cleaning. I figured Chan would be exhausted when he come back from the volunteer work so I prepared an early dinner for him.

It was like he was spying me when he swung the door open right when I finished serving the dinner.

“Oh my god what is that delicious smell?” He ran to the table, sniffing every dish I made like a little puppy.

“Go clean yourself first only then you can eat.”

“Nope, I prefer to eat first before cleaning.” He said, not caring my death glare when he sat on one of the chairs, eyes fixed on the foods in front of him.

We started eaiting silently before he cleared his throat, the topic of ‘soulmate’ came up.

“You told me before you sometimes feel your scar burn?” he asked.

“It does.” I answered, not caring to even look at him.

“Okay so I'm curious about one thing.” He stopped eating, putting down his spoon.

“What?” 

“Does the degree of the pain will be the same as the pain our soulmate feeling? Like you know, if she just cut her finger while cutting vegies it just sting a bit but if she breaks her arm or something then it'll hurt us more. Something like that?”

I stopped eating as I processed his question. I didn’t even know the answer for the question but then I remembered about the burns and the stings I've felt before and it all differs from time to time.

And I remembered that one time when the burn woke me up from my sleep at the middle of the night and stayed for a few days then I though maybe yes. Maybe something really bad happened to this Soeun that night that's why the pain stayed for a longer time.

“Honestly I don’t even know but I guess yes. I'm not an expert though. Why you ask?”

“Curious.” He shrugged as he picked up his spoon again and continued shoving foods in his mouth.

“How’s the volunteer work? Is it fun?” I asked, trying to change the topic.

“It was great!” He put down his spoon again.

“I met a lot of nice people. There were mostly people who suffered from depression in the group and like it suprised me how these people look extremely fine physically but then you hear their stories and you feel like ‘wow, why would such beautiful and nice and smart people have to suffer like this'. Really though, most of them are highly educated and some can even pass as models but lives just happen to be unfair to them. I mean it's not like life is fair to me, and you actually, but I guess we’re just mentally stronger, which I'm thankful for , really, and that’s why I feel great to be able to help these people even with the littlest thing because they deserve to hear at least one ‘i love you' or ‘you're doing amazing' everyday. That's why I'm planning to do exactly that so I asked for everyone's phone number so I can send them positive messages everyday but of course some refused to give me their numbers.”

He pouted, finally stopped talking.

“Wow that's... That's great I guess. You're literally an angel so I don’t doubt you asking their numbers to send them messages. I mean I would be happy just to have you in the group if I were them.” 

“But you call me little devil most of the time.” He looked at me judgingly, raising a brow.

“It's cute.” I shrugged.

“It’s evil, old man.” He said, once again picking up his spoon and continued eating.

“I'm literally 3 years older than you, I'm not old.” I stated matteroffactly. 

“Still old.” He muttered in between his munches which invited a chuckle from me.

He then continued telling me stories and events that happened earlier during the volunteering and even shared with me some of the stories shared by the people in the group.


	18. Chapter 18

The next few weeks were occupied by the piles of assignments and projects as well as the final examination so times went by faster than it already was and it was already the semester break in a blink of an eye. 

I was home alone since Yuchan was working at the store and was bored to death when I decided that it's a good idea to visit him at his workplace. I looked at the clock and I had 1 hour left before his shift ended so I immediately changed to a more proper clothes before ran out.

I walked from the other side of the store so Yuchan didn’t notice I was there, plus he was so into the conversation he was having with a girl that was sitting at one of the tables I doubt he would notice me even if I walked in front of him.

The girl was facing Yuchan so I didn’t see her face. Maybe she was the cute high school girl Yuchan was talking about the other day, but she's not wearing uniform. Or maybe someone from the support group or maybe just a random customer and Yuchan was just being his friendly self talking to her like he’d known her his whole life. I shrugged it off before made my way into the store.

The censor above the door dinged as I opened it, and the only two people in the store automatically snapped their heads to my direction. My eyes went past Yuchan and went straight to the girl.

Her eyes were already on me as I caught her attention by opening the door. I was frozen, my feet were glued to the floor, I wanted to look away but my mind refused. Come on Junhee you don’t even like girls what the fuck are you thinking? My mind was struggling.

My thoughts were cut short when I heard the younger boy behind the counter called me. 

“Hey, you okay?” I woke up from my trance and saw him running towards me. 

I turned my focus to him and nodded softly, “Yea, I'm cool.” I tapped his shoulder, reassuringly.

“Okay good. What you doing here?” he asked, excited.

“Surprise I guess.” I laughed awkwardly as I could see the girl quietly glance towards me from the corner of my eyes.

“Thanks I guess.” Sarcasm was evident in his voice before he turned on his heels and went back to the counter. 

I went around the store to look for something to eat and settled for an egg sandwich and coffee. I paid for the foods and sat on the table across the girl.

She had a hoodie on but the sleeves were pulled to her elbows. I stopped for a second when I saw a few scars on her arms before focusing on my food again, not wanting to make her uncomfortable.

She probably noticed that I was looking so she immediately pulled her sleeves down and cleaned the table before bidding her goodbye to Chan and walked out of the store, not sparing any glance at me.

“Who's that?” I asked my little my brother.

“Oh, someone from the support group.” Now the scars make sense to me.

“Cute right? You should join the volunteer group. You can meet her again.” He continued playfully.

I rolled my eyes at the statement, not even caring to say anything in reply.

I ate slowly and finished everything right when the clock struck 5pm so we immediately walked out of the store once Yuchan changed his shirt.

“You still going to the support group thing tomorrow?” I asked before opening the driver door of the car and Yuchan did the same on the passenger side.

We got into the car and I started the engine.

“Yup, gotta meet all my favourite people.” He closed his eyes, smile reaching his eyes and his shoulder were lifted in a cute way. 

“I thought I'm your favourite?” I asked, fake pouting.

“Shut up your my favouritest.” 

“That’s not even a word dumbass.” I laughed as I turned the steering wheel and drive off onto the main road.

“Well it is now thanks to the oh-so-genius Kang Yuchan, the legend of this generation.” 

I made a disgusted face at his claim before asked, “I don’t feel like making dinner today so choose hamburger or pizza?” 

“Oh my God pizza please I haven’t had pizza in years.” He then dramatically run his tongue over his lips deliciously.

“Stop being a dramatic dumbass you just had pizza last week.”

“Let a man be dramatic! Geez”

“You're not even a man, you're a baby.” I retorted and he punched my arm lightly for calling him a baby.

I drove to one of my favourite pizza places in Seoul, ate faster than a running cheetah per mile and went back home straight away.

Yuchan threw himself on the couch as soon as he entered the house. “Wow, that was a long day.” He exclaimed to himself.

I sat across him and turned the TV on, that was showing some dramas I never even bother to keep updated with.

“Oh yea, by the way I’ve wanted to ask you.” He asked, getting up.

“What?” I asked, eyes still focusing on the TV.

“Have you felt the scar burns or hurts lately?” I turned to look at him and saw his eyes burned into mine.

“Every now and then yes. I mean it's not as often and not as painful as before.”

“As before?”

“As before the night I told you about, when I was sleeping.”

He stayed silent for a few moments, eyes wandering looking for the memory before exclaimed, “ah!! Yes yes I remember that. The one when you were sleeping?”

I nodded, reminiscing the moment myself, it was the most painful burn I've felt after my birthday, when the name first appeared. I'm still wondering to this day what happened to her. Is she safe? Did someone hurt her?

“Why are you asking?” I asked after a few moments.

“Nothing, just curious. Can’t wait to get my own soulmate’s name.” He shrugged.

“You will regret ever saying that.” I retorted as I turned my focus back on the tv, resting my head on the headrest.

“No, I wont't.” He got up and went into his room, leaving his stuffs on the coffee table. 

Why can’t I live like Yuchan? So positive about everything, about life. Always smiling, making people around him happy, literally an angel in human disguise. 

I mentally sighed at the thought, I would never be half as good as he is. My thoughts were cut by the incoming notification on Yuchan's phone. I peeked on the lit up screen and my heart dropped.

“What the fuck?!” I shouted-whispered before picked up the phone to look closely.

My hands were shaking as I read the name on the screen for the millionth times. 

\- Support group Soeun -


	19. Chapter 19

My hands were shaking as I read the name on the screen for the millionth times. 

\- Support group Soeun - 

What the actual fuck! I didn’t even bother to read the text as I was trying to get my head around the fact that my little brother is texting a girl who was possibly my... Soulmate. And the fact that she's in his support group?

Is she a volunteer? My head went blank when the thought hit my head, is she one of the... 

The sound of Yuchan's room door opening startled me. I imediately put his phone on the table and laid back down on the couch, acting as normal as I could.

He casually sat on the couch that he was sitting earlier, totally unaware of what I saw on his phone, and took his phone from the table. I bit my lip, stopping myself from saying something stupid but that didn’t last long.

“So... How many people are there in the support group altogether?” I asked, acting nonchalant.

He snapped his head to my direction, playfully raised his brow at me.

“Suddenly interested?” He smirked. 

“Just... I'm bored to death because you're always outside working or volunteering. I wanna spend more time with you.” I pouted, making an annoying baby sounds, even my own ears hurt at the sound I made.

“You’re disgusting the shit out of me. Fucking stop!” He laughed as he threw a pillow at me.

I dodged it and sticking my tongue out at him.

“You wanna come tomorrow?” 

“Can I?” I asked carefully, didn’t want to sound too excited.

“Of course! I told you you're always invited.” He exclaimed excitedly. 

“Oh my god I can’t wait to show you off to everyone.” He clapped like a kid.

I shook my head and my head suddenly went off again, specifically to the contact name I saw on Yuchan's phone earlier. Is it really her? It's not impossible there’s someone else has the same name as her. I wasn’t even sure if her family name is Im.

So many thoughts were running in my head, I didn’t even realise sleepiness taking over me and I fell asleep with her on my mind.

 

I stood in front of the mirror for more than ten minutes. Will this look good? I wore a black shirt over my black t-shirt, matched with a black ripped jeans and a pair of black sneakers. The whole thing perfectly complimented my jet black hair that was styled with extra effort. 

I stepped out of my room and a smiling Yuchan's face fell when he saw my outfit.

“Someone died?” he asked sarcastically.

“Shut up, I wanna look good and black is the only colour I look good in.” His jaw dropped at my statement.

“Have you seen yourself or are you blind?” I just shrugged at his question before we went out and made our way to the centre.

 

I took a deep breath before stepped out of the car. Do I really want to do this? Am I ready? I wasn’t even sure if it was really her. Hell, why do I even care even if it’s her? I felt my anger rising mostly at myself. I closed my eyes, I'm doing this for Donghun. I promised him, and I'm just keeping my words to him. 

“It’s for Donghun.” I whispered to myself before taking another deep breath and stepped out of the car.

We were greeted by a lady probably in her 40’s with a wide smile on her face. “I’m assuming you're Yuchan's brother?” She offered her hand.

I shook her hand and nodded, “Yes, I am. My name's Junhee.” I smiled.

“We’re so happy to be having you today.” She said before leading the way to one small room. 

There were a few chairs, around 10, that were placed inside the room and 4 of them were occupied. “We’ll leave you two here today. Yuchan, I'm sure you'll do a good job leading them today.” She said to my little brother before walked off to the other room after Chan assured her we'll be fine.

We walked inside the room and automatically all four heads were turned to our direction. There were three girls and one guy and my head was already working hard, figuring out which one of them is Soeun.

“Let's wait for the others.” Yuchan said to them and they nodded.

“You look good today, Chan.” One of the girls said. She had long wavy hair and was wearing a short dress that perfectly fell right below her knees. Is she? Yuchan formed a wide smile on his lips and replied, “You look good too Jiwon, and nice shoes.” Oh, not her. 

They kept on talking to each other, basically flirting, inviting a fake gagged from me when I made a short eye contact with my brother. He mouthed a “fuck you” before turned back his focus to the others.

We waited for another few minutes until all seats were occupied. Well, not all, there was still one empty seat. 

“Okay, let's get started then.” The young boy clapped his hands, grabbing everyone's attention.

“Since my brother is here, and he's new, so why don’t you guys introduce yourself to him?” he asked and each one of them taking turn to introduce themselves and much to my disappointment, none of them was her.

I was about to introduce myself when someone entered the room and my eyes widened when I saw her, the girl from yesterday in the store. She stopped on her track when her eyes landed on mine.

Yuchan cleared his throat, breaking us from our mini eyes fight. She then walked toward the seat beside me and sat on it. 

I just couldn’t stop looking at her and my eyes wandered from her short, black hair, to the pink tint on her cheek, to her fingers that were playing with the hem of her black hoodie, to her black jeans and black sneakers. A smile crept up my lips, thinking how her outfit perfectly matched mine.

She kept her head low, eyes were fixated on her shoes. 

“Emm...” Yuchan voiced out. She snapped her head to him, who was sitting beside me so she had no choice but to look at my direction. I smiled shyly and she replied with the same level of shyness I was displaying.

“We were introducing ourselves to my brother here so, why don’t you introduce yourself?” he asked. I saw her biting her lower lips and I suddenly felt an electric rush in my body, all my gayness were now out of the window.

“Uh...” I felt every hair on my body stood up upon hearing her voice. What the hell Park Junhee shut your testosterone down! I mentally yelled at myself.

“I'm 19 years old, I prefer if you just call me Nc.a.” 

I felt my stomach twisted in a weird way when her voice his my eardrums. Has Park Junhee lost his mind? Most probably, yes. 

I could only hear muffled sounds around me when she looked at me and smile. A tap on my shoulder woke me up from my little wonderland and I heard my annoying little brother’s voice.

“What did you say?” I asked and turned to look at him, utterly confused, when I heard a soft chuckle from her. I could feel my whole face on fire when I realised all ten pair of eyes were on me.

“I said it's your turn to introduce yourself.” He repeated himself.

“Oh yes, okay.” I sat up straight, facing everyone and cleared my throat.

“I’m 20 years old and you can just call me Jun.” I looked at everyone and my eyes stopped on her when I heard her softly mumbling my name, repeating after me. What is this feeling?

I shook off all thoughts, not wanting this weird feeling in me to get worse. I repeatedly chanting Donghun's name in my head, reminding myself this is just how I'm keeping my words to him.

Hopeless, I know but we were together for three years so if you think I could just simply get over him and fall in love with a girl who has the same fashion sense as me then you're totally wrong. 

I might seem fine on the outside, I didn’t mourn over our break up other than that one time I passed out but it was honestly the worst. I had to always occupy my head with stuffs or else I would think of him and just break down.

There are a few times when I woke up at night, just standing in front of his room door, contemplating whether or not should I go inside, sleeping on his bed, enjoying his sweet scent that he left lingering around the room.

The amount of time when I just stared at his contact number on my phone screen, dying to call him and just listen to his honey-coated voice.

I missed him so much I feel like I would just wrap my hand around him and never let go again if I ever see him.


	20. Chapter 20

Yuchan then officially started the session and everyone shared their stories, their wellbeings. I feel like I could just simply fit in with these people because of our background stories.

How sad our lives are, how small we matter to people, how simply we are being thrown by them. 

The session lasted for at least an hour before everyone excused themselves, went out the room to either go home or have another session and before I knew it, there was only the three of us left in the room, me, Yuchan and the girl.

Yuchan moved to the seat beside her and was having some friendly conversation so I was assuming they were good friends. I took out my phone and my lips twitched into a faint smile as the screen showed a picture of me and Donghun, remembering the event behind the picture.

It was a picture of us during our first vacation together at the beach, he was kissing my cheek. Donghun insisted that we went to a vacation after my stepfather threw me out, “to clean your head and start new” he said.

“You guys are cute.” A soft voice spoke beside my ear. I looked up and realised it was just the both of us left in the room.

“Oh, haha.” I laughed awkwardly. “thanks.” My eyes met her and I felt another electric rush through my veins.

“How long have you guys been together?” she asked, started a conversation. Hmm never thought she would be someone who would start a conversation first. 

“Were together.” I whispered. Her smile faded and her eyes showed her mixed emotions.

“Oh my god I'm so sorry.” I smiled, shaking my head and mouthed a soft “it's okay”.

“Mind if I ask what happened? It's okay if you don’t want answer though, I mean okay you don’t have to answer I was just being insensitive and I'm dumb so yea...” I cut her off by chuckling.

“You’re so cute.” I muttered absentmindedly, inviting a shy smile from her as her eyes wandered everywhere but me. 

“We broke up. He fell in love with his soulmate.” I smiled bitterly. “I guess soulmates have their own charm to make you fall in love with them.” I uttered, more to myself.

“I can’t wait to get mine.” She said dreamily, hiding her blushing cheeks in her palms.

I chuckled, amused. “I wasn’t expecting you to be this cute. You know, judging from your outfit and our first meeting.”

She softly bit her lower lips as a shade of pink crept up her cheeks. I smiled at her reaction as I put my phone back in my pocket and laid back on the chair.

“Why are you excited to get your soulmate's name? Do you have someone in mind?” I smirked as her eyes widened at the question.

“Maybe.” She whispered but loud enough for me to hear.

“Tell me about him. Is it my brother?” I raised a brow.

“Oh my god no, he's younger than me I mean it's not that I don’t like younger guys but I prefer not to I just don’t like being the older one in the relationship because I feel like I'll have to be the more responsible and reasonable one which I know I won’t do a good job at and plus Yuchan is too good for me he's everything a girl likes and then there's me, the literal definition of travesty I’m-”

“Oh my god okay yes I get it, you're not into my brother. Geez.” I cut her off.

“Sorry.” She lowered her head again. 

I shook my head at her as another smile formed on my lips.

“So tell me about this guy. Is he cute? Okay of course he is. Where did you meet him? And all of those stuffs.” I asked.

She raised her shoulder cutely and her eyes wandered off probably playing an image of the guy in her head.

“We met last year before I moved out of the orphanage. He volunteered there and he was super nice to me. And yes, he's cute.” She giggled.

I didn’t know much about her but she told me during the session earlier that she had lived in the orphanage ever since she was a baby. She moved out last year after her 18th birthday and now living off of her pay from working several jobs from cashier at a supermarket to delivery girl. 

“What’s his name?” 

“Why do you need to know?” She narrowed her eyes.

I shrugged, “I don’t know, maybe it's someone I know.” 

“Promise me you won’t tell anyone.” She stuck out her pinky finger, waiting for me to accept the deal.

“Oh you can trust me on that one. I don’t have any friend to tell about it anyway.” I said before taking her pinky finger in mine. 

I shivered as our skins touched for the brief moment and I could feel my scar burnt in the most pleasuring way.

“His name is Kim Byeongkwan. He's a college student.”

“Oh my god you mean Kim Byeongkwan as in Kim Byeongkwan?”

She raised her brow with a weird look, “I literally said his name is Kim Byeongkwan.”

“No okay, I mean, I know a Kim Byeongkwan. I don’t know if it's the same person but I don’t think it's common to find someone with that name.” I said, calming down a bit.  
“Who is this Byeongkwan you know?” 

“He's Yuchan's best friend when we were in Jeju but he moved here to go to college. They haven’t seen each other for awhile ever since he moved here but now that Yuchan lives here too so he’s been coming to our house quite often lately.”

“Oh my god my Kim Byeongkwan is from Jeju.” She jumped in her seat.

My lips twitched into a smirk as I raised a brow. “Your Byeongkwan huh?”

Her eyes wandered around like an earthquake as she was looking for a counterattack and once again burying her blushing face in her palms when she found none. 

“So did my brother know about you guys?” She shook her head, “I told him to keep it a secret for now.”

I was about to tease her when I heard footsteps entering the room followed by a cute giggles of Kang Yuchan.

“Let me guess, you finally found out the girl's name?” His face fell as soon as the question escaped my mouth.

“You know too much about me this is not good for my health.” He pouted as he pulled a chair to sit between me and Nc.a. 

“So what's her name and how did you find out about it?”

“What girl?” Nc.a asked, just when Yuchan was about to answer my question.

“A girl I met at the store.” He answered, grinning from ear to ear. Nc.a nodded and her mouth shaped into an ‘o’.

“Her name is Sujeong, she's my age and she's actually living in our apartment building Oh my god!” He told us excitedly. 

I raised a brow, “and where did you get all these information?”

“Apparently one of the volunteers here is her sister and she brought Sujeong along today and I talked to her.”

“You're so cute. I wanna see this girl, she must be really pretty.” Her eyes were glittering as she looked at my brother, looking as excited as he was.

He exaggeratedly pouted and made a sad face at her, “she already went home.”

“Aww.. It's okay. I bet you have her number now, you can text her.” She replied with a baby voice.

“What kind of kink is this?” I asked, making a gagging face.

I totally forgot I've only met Nc.a so she was probably taken aback by my joke when she turned silence and kept her head low at the remark I made earlier. I immediately realised I made a mistake,

“Oh my god I'm so sorry it was just my idea of being funny. Yuchan is used to it and I totally forgot we just met oh my god I'm sorry I'm sorry.” I pleaded, placing my hands on top of hers, ignoring the electricity I felt in my veins when our skins touched.

I glared at Yuchan who was trying so hard to cover his chuckle with his palm.

“I...” I gulped, can people please not stutter at moments like this? It's torturing.

“I can’t believe...” here we go oh my god she doesn’t wanna be my friend. There goes my chance of having friend other than my brother.

“I can’t believe it was too easy for you to read me. Oh my god please don’t tell anyone about this part of me.” 

She laughed, holding my hands, imitating my action a few moments ago. The younger boy laughed loudly, almost falling off his chair by doing so.

“Fuck you okay! Both of you!” I glanced sharply to both of them, pulling my hands from her grip.

“I thought I just blew my only chance to make my first friend in life.”

“Oh so we're already in the cursing each other kind of relationship now? Well, this is fun.” She said in between her laugh.

I huffed an exaggerated sigh and laid back on the chair’s rest. 

“So.. Baby kink huh?” I raised my brow playfully.

“Shut up dumbass. It was a joke.” She slapped my arm which invited a fit of laughter from the three of us.

We then talked for a few hours before going home. I was glad it wasn’t a total waste of my time for going to the session, even though I couldn’t meet the Soeun girl Yuchan was texting.

We were sitting in the car silently, on our way home. The windows were rolled down and the nice summer air hit our faces as we were enjoying our ride. Yuchan leaned his head on the window pane. 

“Do you like her?”


	21. Chapter 21

“Do you like her?” He suddenly asked, eyes still wandering off.

“What do you mean like her?” 

He shrugged, still not bothering to turn to look at me.

“You guys seem to get along well.” 

I chuckled, “I mean she's technically the first friend I’ve ever made so yea I like her.” 

“You have a whole Kim Sehyoon in your life what do you mean your first friend?” He sat up straight in his seat, only now head turned to me after a while.

“I mean the first friend I made with my own effort. I'm friend with Sehyoon because he was friend with Donghun so he didn’t count.” 

“Well you technically knew her from me so I should get some credits.”

“Shut up. Let me have my moment of glory.”

“You're pathetic.”

“Fuck you.”

We both just laughed it off before a question popped up in my head.

“Why does her name N.ca by the way? What's her real name?”

Yuchan's smile faded upon hearing my question. His mouth opened and then closing again, not sure of what to say.

“I... I don’t know. She never tell.” He bit his lower lip, eyes looking straight on the road.

“You're lying.”

“Ask her yourself.” He mumbled under his breath before turning up the volume of the radio, bobbing his head along to the beat of the song.

 

We went inside our room as soon as we got home and cleaned ourselves. I was making dinner for the both of us when my phone beeped, notifying me of an incoming text message. 

1 message by Unknown Number  
*Hey, this is me, Nc.a. You gave me your number earlier but I forgot to give mine. So, here it is. ;;*

A soft chuckle escaped my mouth upon reading the text message. “She sounded cute even through text” I absentmindedly monologue to myself. I saved her number to my phone before replying with a simple 

*Hey, I hope we’ll talk more in the future.*

I know, I hate myself too for being too awkward and dumb.

 

The next few weeks were spent with just me sitting at home, trying to be as productive as I could – internet, movies, cooking, sleeping. I would sometimes packed lunch for Yuchan and went to his convenient store so that I wouldn’t be too lonely having lunch on my own.

Nc.a constantly texted me, telling me about her relationship with Byeongkwan, which I learnt that they confessed to each other a week after Nc.a told me about him and they had been dating for over a month now. 

Yuchan found out about them when Byeongkwan told him a day after they were officially dating and being the overdramatic person Yuchan is, he literally screamed to the phone, causing his best friend to end the call as soon as he started screaming.

And me, being a good brother, had to convince some neighbours, who came knocking on our door upon hearing the hysteric scream, that everything was completely fine, making a mental note to smack my little brother’s head later just so I’d feel satisfy – and I did. 

Despite being excited for his best friend finally getting himself a girlfriend, Yuchan was being extremely weird about it, giving me the idea that he didn’t really supporting the relationship but I brush the thoughts off, thinking it was just me.

 

It was a normal night, I spent half of it watching some movies that were recommended on twitter and decided to go to sleep early. I lied on my bed, getting ready to go to sleep.   
I took my phone from the nightstand, wanting to check my twitter before going to sleep and that’s when it happened. 

My scar burnt and it felt like something I’ve never felt before. The burn on my scar numbed my body, causing me to drop my phone to the floor. I held my shoulder, burying my nails into my skin, not caring if there’s blood dripping off from my shoulder. I bit my lower lip, holding in the scream that was about to escape my mouth. My eyes were shut, denying the reality. The pain was unbearable. I rolled on my bed, all I see was white when I opened my eyes. 

Just when I thought I was able to hold in it, another rush on burning sensation hit me again, numbing my whole body all the way to the bones, forcing me to let out a scream that I had been holding in the whole time.

The hold on my shoulder tightened as I was trying my best to hold the pain, it was unbearable. I couldn’t think of anything other than the pain on my back.

I thought the pain I felt when I first got the name was the worst pain in my life but it was not even half the pain I was feeling right now. This was the worst pain known to any mankind. 

“FUCK!” a curse escaped my mouth as I couldn’t contain the pain any longer. 

“Please God, make it stop.” I was literally begging in my head.

I could feel tears rolling down my face but I could careless, the pain was too much for me to take and before I knew it, everything when dark, my body fell into what felt like a huge, deep void. The pain was long forgotten.


	22. Chapter 22

The sunlight coming from the window hit me straight in the face, waking me up from my sweet – or not so sweet – slumber. I tried opening my eyes but it was too bright, I decided to close them again. 

The throbbing pain in my head came back, reminded me of what happened last night. I rolled to my side, holding my head, eyes still closed shut. 

A few moments passed and the door swung open, revealing a very worried Yuchan, with a tray of foods in his hands. He quickly put the tray on my nightstand and sat beside me on the bed, holding my hands. 

“Oh my god, you okay?”

“Other than the fact that my head feels like it’s going to explode any minute, yea, I’m totally fine.”

I replied, feeling the headache slowly subsiding, opening my eyes slowly, adjusting to the bright light coming from the window as well as from the boy in front of me – a literal sunshine.

“Your ability to being sarcastic even when you’re sick really amazes me sometimes.” 

“Thanks. I need to at least be good at something.” I said, getting up. 

“You’re not going to work today?” I asked once I got comfortable sitting up.

“I took the day off. You think I’m just going to leave you home alone after what happened last night?”

I heaved a sigh before getting up from the bed and went to the bathroom to wash my face.

“I made you breakfast. And I don’t know what kind of meds I need to give you so I just bought Paracetamols.”

“I think that’ll do. Thanks.” I wiped my face with a clean towel and went to sat back on the bed.

“And I cleaned the cuts on your shoulder.” His voice was low, like he was unsure whether he should talk about it or not.

“Thanks.” I whispered loud enough for him to hear me.

It was silent for a few moments as I took the bowl of fried rice he made for me, before Yuchan finally asked the question that was probably been playing in his head since last night.

“What exactly happened last night?”

I put the bowl on my crossed legs, letting out a loud puff of sigh. 

“I honestly don’t have the slightest idea but I can guess.” 

“Your soulmate?” I just nodded lightly, taking another spoonful of rice.

Yuchan didn’t even bother to ask more about it, which I was thankful for, but instead he looked at me with his puppy eyes, scooting closer to me.

“I invited Byeongkwan for a movie night tonight but he asked if So- I mean Nc.a can come along. It would be fun I promise. And we will be as quiet as possible if you don’t wanna join us. Please…”

“Yuchan please… You think I would say no when a baby is literally begging me like this? Of course they can come.”

He pouted at my respond, mouthing a “I’m not a baby” under his breath but smiled the brightest smile again, thanking me.

“And I want to join. I don’t have anything to do anyway and Nc.a is also my friend, remember.”

“Friend… right.” He laughed awkwardly before getting up. 

“I’m going to tell Byeongkwan.” And with that, he disappeared from my room.

A small smile crept up my feature, shaking my head softly at his cuteness.

 

The day passed by like a wind and it was already 5 p.m. I was cooking in the kitchen – not caring how aching my body was from what happened last, I just needed a distraction – when someone knocked on the door.

Yuchan literally ran to the door and a few seconds later the door swung opened widely revealing Byeongkwan and Nc.a. Like an automatic reaction, her eyes immediately lit up when they landed on me. She walked up to me and offered to help me with the cooking. 

 

Both Nc.a and I were cooking in the kitchen while Yuchan and Byeongkwan were playing some video games in the living room. And that was when all happened, all hell broke loose, when the biggest question in my life was finally answered.

I was so into whatever I was doing when suddenly the sound of the knife fell into the sink making me turned my attention to the source of the sound. Nc.a held her left hand in her right and I saw a drop of blood on her finger. 

That’s when I felt it, the spark of sharp sting on my back.


	23. Chapter 23

She quickly turned the tap on and let the water flow on her cut finger, hissed when the water creates a little sting on the cut.

My head was spinning as I was watching her whole move, not able to think anything. Is she really...?

I didn't realise how long had I been staring at her until she asked for a band-aid, waking me up from my trance.

"Oh, yea. Sorry. Give me a sec."

I rushed to get the first aid kit that I put near the kitchen, temporarily forgetting the sting on my back.

Ignoring the electricity rush I felt when our skins touched, I helped her applied some ointments on the cut before wrapping it with a band-aid.

I held her hand for God-knows-how-long just softly caressing it, eyes not leaving her confused ones. "Can you please answer me honestly?" my voice came out low.

"What is it?" I got goosebumps when her voice hit my eardrums.

"What is your name? I know there's no way in the world Nc.a is your real name."

There was an earthquake in her eyes upon hearing my question.

"Why do you need to know?"

"Just because."

"I will tell you but with one condition."

"What?"

"Let go of my hand." And with that, her hand was free from my hold almost abruptly, waking me up from my thoughts.

"Sorry I wasn't in my right mind." I shook my head.

She chuckled, "No it's okay. I just don't want Byeongkwan to walk in on us holding hands like that, he would get a wrong idea."

"Yea, of course." I scratched head, lowering my head now staring at the floor.

"Anyway, to answer your question. Yes, Nc.a isn't my real name. To be honest I always introduce myself as Nc.a sometimes I forget I even have a real name." She fidgeted with her fingers.

"But I think it's a story for another time. Let's finish this first." She moved back to the sink and took the knife. I knew better than to ask more about it so we just continued cooking in silent.

The night went on like a normal sleepover – we had dinner and played a few random games – until I suggested we watch a movie that Byeongkwan and Yuchan started their childish quarrel. Byeongkwan suggested that we watch 'Friday the 13th' but Yuchan strongly disagreed and suggested to watch 'Wreck-it-Ralph' since the movie just came out.

"You just want to watch that because you're scared!" The older exasperated at my baby brother.

"Excuse you, I'm not scared but I've been waiting for this movie to come out since forever so I want to watch this." Yuchan protested as he grabbed the laptop from his best friend's lap.

"Then watch it when you're alone!" Byeongkwan grabbed the laptop back from the younger.

"No, I want to watch it tonight!" Yuchan took the laptop back.

Me and Nc.a decided to stay out of the argument and just sat silently at both corners of the couch.

"Let's vote then." Byeongkwan turned his head to look at me and his girlfriend. "What do you want to watch?"

"Can I please just... not decide?" I replied with a low voice. I might be older than them but I would rather not trigger anyone.

"No! Both of you need to vote." Yuchan disagreed.

I let out a puff of breath before looking at the only girl in the room with a pleading look. "Please say something." I mouthed to her.

She simply shook her head as a sign that she didn't know what to say hence I decided to say the first movie that came into my mind.

"Let's watch 'Love, Simon'." I blurted.

All three of them fell into a short silence before Nc.a smiled and clapped her hand. "Yes, let's watch 'Love, Simon'."

"Please no romance movie." Yuchan protested for the hundredth times that night.

"But you said to vote and 'Love, Simon' got two votes so it's winning." I grabbed the laptop and clicked on the movie I selected.

Both Byeongkwan and Yuchan simply gave up and decided that it's best to just go with it. They both settled on the couch with Byeongkwan lying down, putting his head on Nc.a's lap while she softly ran her tiny fingers between his locks.

My heart dropped at the sight before me. I didn't know if it was jealousy or what I was feeling but I knew I didn't like it.

I tried my best to focus on the movie but my attention kept on averted to the couple in front of me.

Halfway through the movie, soft snores could be heard. My brother was already lost in his dreamland, snuggling into the warm blanket, Byeongkwan curled into a ball and Nc.a seemed like she was in another world.

I let out a soft yawn, feeling the sleepiness that was taking over me so I decided to make myself a cup of tea before properly putting myself to sleep.

I was staring out the window while stirring the tea, making sure I was not making a loud noise in the process when suddenly I heard a soft voice beside me, "a penny for your thoughts?", waking me up from my trance.

We both chuckled at my reaction. I shook my head, "nothing, I'm just a little sleepy. Sorry the movie bore you."

"Don't worry about it. I love the movie but I guess I'm just a little tired today."

"Cup of tea? Or more like, a mug of tea? Sorry we're not really fancy here." Another fit of laughter escaped her mouth.

"Yea, sure I guess."

I made her tea as she took a seat on one of the chairs around the dining table and I followed once I was done, handing her the mug.

"We only have chamomile in the kitchen. Well, I'm not really a tea type of person but Dongh- I mean my ex-boyfriend loves chamomile so he bought shit tons of them." I didn't even notice the smile that was creeping up my lips until she asked, "You miss him?"

I was too stunned at the question to even answer it so I just stared blankly into her eyes. 

I would be lying if I say I didn't miss him. It still felt like a dream, waking up without the warm embrace of the man I love the most. I still cried myself to sleep once every few nights when the thoughts of him suddenly came flooding in but am I going to tell all this to the girl who is possibly my match-made in heaven? No I definitely won't so I just stayed silent for a few moments.

"Sorry." Her voice soft, lowing her head as she avoided my gaze.

"No, don't worry about it. There's nothing to be sorry about." I assured.

We fell into a calming silent before she took a deep breath and let it out with a loud puff.

"Mind I tell you a little about myself?" my eyes widen at the sudden question but immediately answered a quick "sure, anything", making sure my voice was calm enough.

"About my name... you asked me about it earlier."

"I did."

She took another deep breath before turned in her chair to look me straight in the eyes.

"I hate my real name."


End file.
